29 June 2006 at 05:02
As you can see from this pic of me aged about 10, I'm Scots, at least from the waist down. And the shadow on the grass proves that nothing is worn under the kilt.
People often ask me: "Robmcj, you're Scottish, what exactly is the point of a sporran?"
Well, the sporran is the pouch that you wear at the front of your kilt, for keeping your johnnies in (or if you're a kid, your cigarettes).
Another use for the sporran is in preventing attraction between males. A kilt without a sporran is just a skirt, and everybody knows that a drunken Scotsman will go for anything in a skirt. These guys forgot to wear their sporrans and look what happened:
Always use a sporran:
That's better.
Still on a Scottish theme, Lee Ann (now sadly retired from HNT) was kindly asking whether I am eating well while my partner is away. Well, I gave up eating porridge years ago, because I kept walking away from the kitchen and letting it burn. But this morning it was so cold here, I decided it was time to make some porridge to warm me up. I put it on the stove, and while it was cooking I came to the PC to blog for 2 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, the smoke alarm went off. Now I've got all the doors and windows open to clear the burning smell before the partner comes home. As a result, it's sub-zero in here and I'm colder than ever. You see? You try to warm yourself up, and the universe bites back. Everything has to balance.
Over on the other side of the island, thousands of daddy penguins have been huddling together for weeks, to keep warm and to protect their mates' eggs until the females return from hunting. Here on this side of the island, I've been trying to stay warm, while conserving sperm until the return of my partner. The island's balancing up.
PS - speaking of Scotland,
Celti has a quite breathtaking blog design. And check out her subversive Navbar at the top. The blog takes a while to load, so you might be quicker just looking at
her background picture. I hate to turn this into a backhanded compliment, but her actual posts aren't really my sort of thing.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts
here.
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27 June 2006 at 14:41
Australia exited very unfairly, to a penalty in the last seconds of injury time.
If you study the video (as Australian TV has been doing ad nauseam), you see that Lucas Neil, the alleged fouler, was motionless on the ground at the time, and the Italian guy went out of his way to hook his toe around Neil's body and simulate a foul. It's a trick I often used when I was looking after kids, I would pretend to trip over things and fall down. Kids love it, but the Aussie community here on the island are not amused, and I feel for them. As a gesture, I've thrown open the doors of the brewery and offered every Australian resident as much beer substitute as they can drink. No takers yet.
The josephine who lives here has gone to a health retreat for a few days, to be pampered and maybe lose a couple of pounds. Meanwhile, I'll be using the beer and popcorn diet to hopefully gain a few pounds. Everything balances up.
Being on my own for few days, I'll be free to clear the decks in the kitchen so I'll have some space to work in. The other joes who normally live here use the communal student flat method of kitchen etiquette. For days they keep adding dirty dishes to the pile in the sink and on the surfaces, until there are no clean dishes left anywhere and no space left for food preparation, and the cockroaches dine well on the leftovers. Then some sucker has to do the washing up, which takes infinitely longer because everything is encrusted with dry food and grease.
But I use the monastic kitchen system. I have one plate, one knife, one fork, one cup, etc., and I keep them clean by washing them after use (if the kitchen sink is blocked by a greasy pile, I use the basin in the laundry).
This system suits everyone in the house - they can live in the squalor they like, and I don't need to. Everything balances up.
With live action TV from Wimbledon and the World Cup both continuing throughout the night here, I could become nocturnal. Tonight it's Brazil v Ghana. Should be a formality.
Money-saving hint number 17 - genital fashion on the cheap: I've never had a Brazilian, but I once had a Mexican. That's where you cut your pubes as short as possible with a pair of scissors, then you set fire to the stubble. It's perfectly safe if you keep the flame moving. Compared with a Brazilian, it's much kinder to the skin. Or do I mean cinder?
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25 June 2006 at 07:45
Some time ago,
hotboy asked me about Bloglines.
Bloglines tells you as soon as a new post appears on any of your regular blogs. When I took this shot, I was up to date on all my reading, except for 1 post on The Rambling Taoist, and 540 flu-related posts.
I think you can probably try out
my bloglines page to get an idea of how it works.
It can make your bloglife so simple.
Just watched Mexico play so well, in a long match against the world's best team of surly dirty foulers. Final score: Arg 2, Mex 1. Meanwhile Australian TV, which is all I can pick up here, is still going on about last week's victory against Croatia. Once the Aussies get knocked out, we'll see all interest evaporate.
It's the middle of the night and the middle of winter here, so it's back to bed with a hottie. That's a hot water bottle.
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21 June 2006 at 16:20
I was tagged by the incomparable
Lelly to list "Six weird facts/habits about yourself".
Lelly, I've been waiting all my for life for someone to ask that. I feel I have an unfair disadvantage for this one, and making the list was way too easy. The list grew to 10, then over 20, and I'm still trying to edit it down to 6. In the meantime, I have siphoned off some of the excess weirdnesses into a photo. How many can you count?
In the picture, I'm using my favourite battery-powered device to give myself pleasure while looking at something illegal on the TV. You can click the bandaid to peel it off and switch on the TV.
Explanation - someone emailed me an illegal copy of a new novel which hasn't actually been published yet. Instead of printing it out, I decided to save paper and read it on the PC. But to avoid getting backache or RSI sitting for hours at the screen, I re-routed it through the TV, so I can read it flat out (using my light-bending TV glasses, but let's not go into that now, I mustn't go over my limit of six weird things).
The only problem was - how to page down through the text? For that I use my wireless game pad, which runs on batteries. The whole setup works brilliantly!
Incidentally, as you can see, my beer-based weight gain programme has been a miserable failure so far. Will I never be able to get fat like normal people?
Remember, this is a freelance Taoist blog. So I try to make sure that every true story contains a wee lie. The only lie here is that I wouldn't normally be doing this naked - it's winter here and I had to really freeze while taking this picture. Suffering for my art.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.~
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20 June 2006 at 11:45
I fixed the missing sidebar and the duplicate comments on the Main Page, but as a side effect there are no comments on individual post pages. I'm wasting my life away on tinkering with this template. But then, what better way to while away the time waiting for the apocalypse? Well, watching football would be better.
In between working on the next HNT and doing the Six Weird Things meme, I have been reading a blog by J, who describes himself as "obnoxious and superficial and judging and complicated." He's playing my tune.
He also came up with a great idea for a spin-off product for the Beanstalk Gold factory, a tasty iced dessert, "mmm ... Ureal Goodness."
But someone else has already beaten me to the best business idea yet, selling for $100 a bottle!
I know I shouldn't be squeezing yet another post out of this topic, but it seems to be generating a continuous stream of comments. It looks set to just run and run.
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18 June 2006 at 14:56
Thank you to the commenters who offered to supply raw material for my plant food business. Unfortunately, just as we filled the warehouse with bottles of Beanstalk Gold™, one of the multinationals got wind of my plan and bought me over just to shut me down.
I had to promise not to manufacture any more plant food in the future. But they didn't say anything about cosmetics. So here's the plan.
Keda's recipe for a natural face pack happens to use exactly the same ingredients as the plant food.
So I'll design a new label and glue it over the top of the old labels. Bingo! A product is re-born, with 10% to Keda. I'm taking suggestions for a new brand name.
Meantime, to boost my credentials, I've already written a book to coincide with the launch of the new product range. It's called "Make Your Own Cosmetics For Free, The Natural Way" by Rob MacJay. I'm still looking for a literary agent, maybe I'll use the agency that
hotboy uses to market his books worldwide.
This is an excerpt from the book:
Natural Hand Cream. Instead of buying expensive hand creams, here's a healthy tip that will also save you a fortune. Using your fingertips, give yourself a 5-minute scalp massage, then work the grease into your hands. Yes, it's really that simple. This recipe works best if you give up washing your hair, so you'll save on shampoo too.
A lot of Aussies live here on the islands. I'm sure they join me in congratulating Brazil on their skilful acting and balletic dives, and even managing to play some great football in the second half.
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15 June 2006 at 22:00
I'm going to be rich!
You see, there's an old family secret, handed down through generations of gardeners, for a plant food formula that will double the size of your houseplants, almost overnight.
I've got some investors interested, so just as soon as I fix the bugs in this blog template (especial apologies to Firefox users), we can start production. I'm thinking of using the brand name "Beanstalk Gold".
And because the raw materials for the product cost absolutely nothing, all the money is profit. As long as I can flood the market before the conglomerates like Monsanto get wind of it, I'll be rolling in it.
In the photo, the black line shows you the difference between the normal size of the plant before treatment, and all the vibrant new foliage that appeared after one week's treatment with Beanstalk Gold™.
I'll share the secret formula with you, if you promise not to pass it on. Just click the image.
The formula has been tested outdoors too, and the people who live here have been enjoying the results from our vegetable garden.
I'd like to acknowledge my late uncle, who passed on the formula to me before he passed on himself.
PS - I'm not serious about going into business, but everything else is true. This is a freelance Taoist blog. So I try to make sure that every true story contains a wee lie. And every lie contains a grain of truth.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.~
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13 June 2006 at 15:52
If I was a competitive person, I would be posting this Glasgow newspaper article simply to rival hotboy's own
allotment photos. He has blatantly revealed where he and my old dear have their assignations.
But thanks to enlightened toilet training I lack the competitive streak, so presumably I'm motivated by some kind of Oedipal thing here.
Either way, this article proves that I was already an allotment gardener, way back when hotboy was still just growing weed in a plant-pot. Give him another 20 years, and he'll be into HNT.
The photographer said "look as angry as you can." I'm the mean-looking gardener holding a rake. You can click on the article to read the story, though I don't know why you'd want to.
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12 June 2006 at 22:34
It's just a few minutes until the insufferables kick off against the inscrutables. An Aussie friend sent me this front-page picture from this morning's Sydney Morning Herald.
I'm not saying the Australians are being too optimistic, but I'll be watching the match in my kimono.
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11 June 2006 at 13:30
Over at Ra Bliss Blog it's the season for
apologies.
I'm not competitive, but to even the score I need to apologise to hotboy for all the times I have rubbished Ra Bliss, when in truth I know that meditation is an admirable thing to do, and if more people spent time sitting quietly contemplating their breath, the world would be a better place.
And to make the score 2-1, I might as well apologise to my German uncle. When I mentioned recently that he "
lays down borders" in his paintings, I was not alluding to 1939.
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07 June 2006 at 13:09
Last year, I
found a site that can show you what you will look like when you're older.
Well this week I found a website that does the reverse! What you do is upload a photo of someone's face, specify how many years you want to go back in time, and the software does the rest. Obviously no-one wants to see my face, so I tested it using
Lee Ann's profile image.
If you click the image and wait a couple of seconds, you can see what she would have looked like at age 5. Gorgeous.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.PS - I've being template-tinkering, so now all comments show up twice, but I'll fix it soon.
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06 June 2006 at 10:06
Thank you to the wise people for their cautionary comments on the previous post. Because I beat cancer a long time ago I tend to assume I'm invulnerable and can do without common sense. I think the current expression is "extreme hubris". I should look at where it has got Bush.
What brushes with fame have you had? I once stood in an airport queue behind Peter Ustinov. And as
hotboy knows, as a kid I shook hands with Muhammad Ali. He probably doesn't remember now. And I was once on the same plane as Leo McKern. He was so fat that they gave him two seats.
Isn't Galaxy Quest a brill movie? I had only ever seen it on a plane, constantly interrupted. It's not the reason why I like the film, but on more than one occasion my beloved partner has been stopped at airports and asked for her autograph. People reckon she looks like Sigourney Weaver. I must say (not just because she might read this) that I prefer my partner any day.
Angie, my previous partner was once mistaken for Meryl Streep. But of course one is never content, and I would really have liked a Kate Hudson (from "Almost Famous") lookalike. Nowadays since I look like a dog's breakfast myself, I'm happy with anyone who can stand the sight of me. That reminds me - see you Thursday?
And what brushes with fame have you had?
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05 June 2006 at 08:28
One morning last week I tied the exercise weights to my ankles before I went walking, to give myself an extra workout. About half an hour into the woods, with not a soul around, I started to feel my heart throbbing, boing-boing, like in the cartoons. I thought - so this is how I'm going to die, miles from civilisation with nobody to rescue me, music blaring on the headphones till the batteries run out. Yippee! What a great way to go, quickly and alone in the wilds, with my dog by my side.
Well, obviously the pounding heart settled down again, the ideal death was not to be. But it got me thinking, and I remembered that there's always a down side to everything. If I had died, my beloved partner would have had to sort through all my crap and clear it out - hypothetically if I had a collection of porn, she would find it. And what about the dog? Would the dog leave me lying there and run off to call for help, like Lassie? In reality she would be more likely to dash under a car, so I resolved that my dying act would have been to tie her to me, so that at least one of us would survive.
We went away last weekend, well just along the bay really, to spend a night at the Club 18-50 resort. Naturally I was keen to get my money's worth, so as well as half-starving myself before the buffet breakfast, we had to turn up the room heating full-blast and strip off. After baking in the room for a few hours, I used the sauna, and then jumped straight into the outdoor pool to cool off. Of course, it's winter here, so the water was freezing, and I had my second Near Death Experience in one week. What a fortunate creature I am to be alive!
PS - the movie on the hotel TV was Galaxy Quest, about a bunch of sci-fi actors who are so believable that a bunch of aliens asks them to help rescue their planet. I'm now a bit nervous - when the Apocalypse comes, will I be inundated with people who want to shelter on the UnHeard Of Island?
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01 June 2006 at 10:16
My old dear (in some areas of Scotland, old dear = mother) takes exercise quite seriously for an 80-year-old. Hotboy
lives in the gardener's quarters round the corner from her, and the two of them once shared an energetic
Lady Chatterley moment in the woods. Naturally I have anonymised her features here - if he saw her face again it might bring it all back for him.
Also, there are some people after my inheritance, if they could just identify her on the way home from the bank.
Normally the old dear is excessively correct. Everything has to be perfect, just how she wants it. Sometimes she takes the scissors to photos, and cuts off anything that's not perfect. For example, in my own christening photo, she chopped out my father. True. And she loves throwing things out. If someone's not smiling in a photo, or they're not standing straight, or not wearing a tie, she puts it in the bin. But to her credit, she resisted the urge to throw me out when I was a kid.
In her dotage now, she's actually loosening up, or maybe just losing it. Last week she sent me 2 pictures. After this picture was taken, she got off the exercise bike and lined up my stepfather for a photo with the bike in the background.
You can see her second photo if you click the image. I'm so glad it got past her quality control.
PS - I've being template-tinkering, so now all comments show up twice, but I'll fix it.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.~
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