Good News: We bought our round-the-world tickets today. We fly from Sydney to Chicago, Chicago to Boston, Boston to London, London to Venice, Rome to London, and London to Sydney via Singapore.
Bad News: An Australian flight attendant has just been placed in isolation with a suspected case of SARS after working the Singapore to Sydney flight. Crap.
1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.
There are so many. Just tonight I was trying to hide iPod from view so the cool guy waiting near me at the bus stop wouldn’t see that I was bopping to “All the Small Things” by Blink 182.
2. Name two songs that always make you cry.
People actually cry from songs? Seriously, people. I mean, sure, if your boyfriend has just dumped you and you’re listening to the Smiths, maybe. But I don’t think a song on its own has ever made me weep. I guess if I had to answer I’d say Ani Difranco’s “Untouchable Face” and U2’s “One” make me choke up a little bit. A very little.
3. Name three songs that turn you on.
REM’s “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”, Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”, and Indigo Girls’ “Romeo and Juliet”.
4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.
“See a Little Light” by Bob Mould, “I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono” by Dar Williams, “Fight Test” by Flaming Lips, and “New York City” by Cub.
5. Name five songs you couldn’t ever do without.
What, in addition to all the ones I’ve just named? Let’s see… “Like a Prayer” by Madonna, “Knowing Me Knowing You” by ABBA, “Say Goodbye” by Dave Matthews Band, “Islands in the Stream” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, and “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” by XTC. Man, I didn’t realize I was such a fan of pop music. I guess everybody likes to think of themselves as a “serious” and discerning fan, but I can’t hide behind that anymore. I am an unabashed crappy pop music whore.
I was telling my co-workers this morning that one of the pub trivia questions last night was: “Which company invented the dot matrix printer?” They all laughed because the answer, of course, is Epson. Well, to be technical, it was Seiko who then started Epson. They built the “EP-101” for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. (Hence the name “Epson”, which expresses the company’s determination to produce many worthy “sons” of the EP-101. That’s from our company magazine; I kid you not.) Anyway, afterwards one of the IT guys called me over and showed me the EP-101! We’ve got one in a display case. It looked like a lawnmower motor, to be honest. I thought it was pretty funny though.
Disappointment. Our bid to defend the title was unsuccessful. We had eight people and we weren’t drunk; we just got a lot wrong this week. We failed to guess the two swimming events Mark Spitz won gold medals in, and we also missed the two years London hosted the Summer Olympics. My own meager personal highlights were knowing the four Presidents shown on Mount Rushmore and correctly identifying the Cure song “Boys Don’t Cry”. Questions of the Week: What letter do most of the world’s countries end in? Which country executed Mata Hari?
I was lamenting to my friend Kevin this morning that I haven’t been able to find any Crisco in the can in Sydney to bake with. I’ve seen the bottles of cooking oil everywhere, but never the solidified stuff. Imagine my surprise when he responded, “I’ve seen it!” Me: “Where?” Him: (embarrassed) “The sex shop.” Hilarious! And yet gross too, especially since I’ll probably have to venture in there to pick some up if I get the baking urge…
Somebody’s selling her high school yearbook!
Edited 29/04/2025: Link is dead and not archived.
Somebody left a box of fortune cookies on the table in our office kitchen, so I grabbed one. My fortune:
Brisbane’s cost of doing business is cheaper than Sydney. See how much you could save with our supply chain analysis offer.
A crummy commercial!
Hmmm. I need some help. My Mom sent me one of those Jello Jiggler Easter egg molds, but the first batch yesterday didn’t go very well. The eggs all broke in half when I tried to get them out (even after running hot water over the mold), and the halves themselves weren’t as stiff as I remembered. Do you have to modify the basic Jello recipe at all for Jigglers? I was thinking that maybe I should use less water and that would stiffen them up a bit. Any ideas, either for the recipe or the unmolding process?
Oh yes. The Snook and I will be extras in Star Wars, if I have to lie, steal, cheat, or even kill to get us in. (Can you tell I watched Gone With the Wind last weekend?) How frickin’ cool would that be? I’m sending in our details right now.
The five worst live rock performances ever. Actually that’s a weird list. Four out of the five are in Australia, which made me think that it was strictly an Australian list. But then they throw in Oasis at Wembley (which is in England), which throws the whole thing into doubt.
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
Congrats and to many more 🙌🏽
My home economics teacher taught us to use “J cloths” as press cloths. (Cellulose cleaning cloths). The upside of using…
Special thanks to Matt Hinrichs for the site logo!
5 responses