Or rather, two lads up two (adjacent) poles.I have been without power for six-and-a-half hours today, until these guys had finished with their business. The one on the left spent a very long time (as here) reading the instruction manual, which I found rather disturbing.
This does mean that I have had a frustratingly unproductive day - no Internet, no computer (I was going to write up the notes for an academic writing course I'm starting next week, and make some Powerpoint slides for a presentation I'm supposed to be giving next Friday), no washing-machine (Friday is laundry day!!), not even any hot water (the crappy "on-demand" water-heater in my kitchen may be gas-fired but the ignition system is evidently on mains electric), so I couldn't get stuck into the week's backlog of washing-up. I have been at a loose end since getting back from my morning run (water in the [electric] heater in bathroom was already pretty tepid, so I didn't even get a decent shower). I've just been idling the day away, watching my fridge leak all over the kitchen floor, and eating gloopy ice-cream.
No entertainment either ("No TV and no beer make Homer go mad."); well, it's the music I miss most - hard even to get enthusiastic about "tidying up" and mopping the floor without that. God, how did we amuse ourselves in the pre-electric era? I was tempted to light a fire in the middle of the floor so that I could watch the pretty sparks.
6 comments:
Your writeups of Chinese culture help me understand this:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/11/asia/gluten.php
For more on the pet food problem, http://petconnection.com/blog/
Georg, I hardly dare to look! Is this the pets-as-food problem or the food-for-pets problem??
Thanks for the links. I will try to check them out over the weekend.
I am glad to have 'activated' you. You're becoming one of my most regular commenters.
Where's Jazz? Does he not 'do' blogs?
Foood for pets.
Jazz reads a few blogs, but I don't know if he is reading yours. I sent him the links. The rest is up to him.
I have a few blogs I read regularly, and I can't shut up on some of them. :)
I don't want to think about pets for food, although Jazz confessed to being fed dog in the Phillipines.
You remind me of a character from a boarding house where I almost lived during my time in Cambridge, Mass.
The house itself was a beautifully renovated piece of Old America. (Coming from 100 year-new Oklahoma where anything built as early as 1930 was considered ancient, I was having a field day, or rather, lots and lots of field days when I moved to Cambridge, exploring Old America.)
I think it might have been a "This Old House" house - that fact alone almost sold me on it. (Huge "This Old House" Fan - Did I mention my love for construction and buildings?)
In the end, I signed a lease with another building, with my Turkish chicken-farm-raised Banker fellow Grad student...
But I'm getting off track - I meant to talk about how you remind me of my potential housemates from the "This Old House" house.
Basically, I could imagine any or all of them creeping out into the early morning dawn with dull saws, attempting to cut down "annoying" trees, then hoisting the fallen tree pieces up 6 flights to have a little... er... large bonfire in the middle of their room.
Of course, had I chosen to live there, I would probably have been guilty of deconstructing the walls to study the original framework.
We've all got a bit of the 'strange cat' in us, eh?
George,
I'm with Froog on the don't ask, don't tell pets for food info... ewwwww.
I had noticed several headlines recently on the food for pets sitch US-side...
Not having the stomach to hear about it, I'll probably never check out your links, but I'm glad to have the company in the commenter-box. :) Obviously, I also "can't shut up" on some of the blogs I frequent. ;)
The first link, in summary, is that the Chines company that sold the tainted wheat gluten is of course claiming they nothing about it, they do not export or manufacture wheat gluten, and they certainly don't add anything to the wheat gluten "to enhance its protein value." And of course the neighbors are helpfully pointing out their manufacturing plant, why the additive was there, and the shipping schedule. Management is trying not to lose face. The Chinese equivalent of lawyering up.
I've never had a bonfire in a place not designed to have bonfires... even if I had to construct such a place first. I don't know if that's a comfort to you or not.
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