Stuff Archives

I met up with someone in the morning for a coffee and on the way back into the office there was a homeless person who had climbed up a pole and was holding a no entry sign to ransom. I actually video'd about 25 minutes. I've cut it down to 5 minutes, but it's still probably a bit long. After you've seen the beginning, it's kind of repetitive, although the end does show a friend of the person up the pole losing it.

Take a look if you're bored, but the summary is that guy goes up a pole. I hung around for 3 police cars, 2 fire engines and 1 ambulance ... along with the workers that were doing whatever work was being done to the utilities ... so quite a lot of people ... standing around watching someone up a pole about 7ft off the ground. There were several cries of “tazer his ass” from the crowd that gathered, like me, to video the event ... presumably hopeful that something grim would happen and you'd be the one to catch it on camera. Nothing happened whilst I was there except the street got closed to cars. I'm guessing the assessment was that this guy didn't represent a threat to the public so rather than bring him down and clear up the scene, it was left for him to either come down or fall down (I don't know which as I'd gone).

Can't help thinking ... how much tax do I pay and how much is an ounce of lead? Welcome to San Francisco!

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! How to make a fart hurt someone.

So, anyway, I was at work right and I went up to a female that I work with and they'd quite clearly farted just before I rolled up. Well, either that or they'd shit themselves, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here. Anyway, as painful as it was for me to stand in the stench zone, it was quite clear that she needed to drop another one .... so I stood talking to her. Even to the extent of walking two steps away three times and then turning back round to add something to the conversation.

There was something satanical about watching how contorted her face kept going as the pocket of air was trying to force its way out. Along with how tightly someone could cross their legs.

I have to admit that when I finally left I was rather disappointed that I didn't hear the biggest trouser rip behind me as the air once again filled with fug.

So, today was William's first day out fishing and I'm really impressed that he managed to keep his attention for most of the time we were there (a total of about 6 hours). Well, attention for most of the time except for the part where he fell in, but at least it was a warm day. Although falling in was caused with trying to sneak round the other side of the reeds to fire maggots at my float with the “slingshot”. Oh well, still was a good day and here are the pictures to prove it along with my mate Mat and his kid JJ.

I just spent somewhere in the region of $8m on a new camera and some lenses. I was in the process of setting it up and trying to figure out how it worked and in walked my son from swimming and then proceeded to strip. Here's the first picture with my new camera.

As most people will have read, I've posted a few vote questions about Fish-O-Mania a few weeks back. More along the lines of the fact that I was thinking about trying to enter next year. Hopefully ... I have it recorded so can watch it when I come back to the UK in a couple of weeks, but knowing my old fellow's technical abilities, I'm sure something will have gone wrong and I'll have 6 hours of Coronation Street instead.

Anyway, that's not the reason for this post. I've been following a Dan Blackwell online. I try to watch a few YouTube videos during the week so I can learn different methods and maximize the time I get on the bank when I come back home and get the chance to go out. I started watching videos of Steve Ringer, Tommy Pickering and Bob Nudd as well as many others that have some great stuff out there where you can learn so much. I came across a video by Dan and have to say when I started to watch it, I nearly turned it off thinking “what's this kid going to tell me.” I ended up watching the video and thought “hold on a minute, this kid knows his stuff and the video's pretty well put together.” I watched a few of his videos and have now watched all of them I'm sure. They're published under minnowmaster209 and well worth watching.

As much as I was hoping to watch the Fish-O-Mania competition when I came back home without knowing the results, I saw a post from Dan that he'd won the junior competition. Really need to take my hat off to this kid for doing such a great job of the fishing videos and working to get this thoroughly deserved win. Also think his dad (or whoever shoots the videos) needs a big shout out for the patience and doing a great job of that.

Here's the short video of Dan picking up his trophy:



Probably not the most interesting video, so here's on of him catching carp on the pole and feeder. If you're interested in that sort of thing.

So .... a few weeks back, William came home with a school project to grow a sunflower. In the typical interest of a child, his attention lasted about a day and half before he got completely bored with it, however, Karen picked this up as a mission. I'd like to say this was to be her crowning glory to prove that she could indeed look after flowers.

Now, I will admit that my talents in this area are severely limited, but I do have 100% record with flowers. I've never tried to grow any and therefore have never failed. Simples!

Anyway, there were two of these sunflowers and they seemed to be doing really well. One of them had grown quite thick and had several flowers. The second one had grown taller and was looking like it was just about to flower. I can't remember exactly when I last saw them, but I thought all was well as I headed to Seattle on Monday.

I came back from Seattle late Wednesday afternoon and when I went into the kitchen, was quite surprised as to what had happened to these monuments of Karen's horticultural abilities. Clearly what happened is my fault. I know that, but I'm really not sure what I did to them and haven't asked as am not really sure I want to find out. I'm still maintaining plausible deniability on account of the fact that I was in a different State. And no, not just a state of denial, but physically in a different State.

The first image shows the two plants together and then the next two images are close ups of the one that had started to bloom.


My best guess on this one is that the plan changed from becoming a gardener into focusing more on expression art. I believe this now to be some kind of post modern representation of our marriage. I'm not sure it really needs any further commentary.

As for the second one ....


The mind boggles a bit here. I do know that I may have upset her a little in the week as we are finalizing a point in the divorce, but I didn't think it was that bad. When I look at the poor plant, it seems as if she went outside and bit its head off in some crazed Alan Titchmarsh meets Ozzy Osbourne kind of way.

I'm sure there's another explanation, but I kind of like mine. Visions of Karen losing her mind and running down the street believing that she's chasing Triffids and biting the heads off the neighbors plants.

It's hard to believe that you can say something without realizing what it is you're saying, but this is an actual broadcast from KTVU Fox 2 in San Francisco reporting on the Asiana plane crash.



Apparently they called the NTSB to confirm the names and these were confirmed by a summer intern working there. But still .... seriously!

If you missed it, the names are:

• Captain Sum Ting Wong
• Wi To Lo
• Ho Le Fuk
• Bang Ding Ow

*************

So, I've updated the link as these videos keep getting taken down from YouTube ... not surprisingly. The bullet list above at least gives you the context of what happened. Go to YouTube and search for KTVU Asiana if you want to find it. Seems as soon as they take one copy down another 10 go up. This one may stay given it's from another TV show.

I'm not 100% sure I heard this right so this may need some follow up. I took three flights this week with an airline I don't normally use. (All three flights were delayed .... go figure why I don't normally use them). Anyway, on the last flight I was actually awake for the safety briefing. I normally fall asleep as soon as I get on the plane. Anyway this airline's instructions to inflate the life vest were “put finger in ring and pull towards front.” I'm pretty sure I got this right as it normally says to pull the tab sharply downwards. Never anything about a ring or pulling towards the front.

The trouble is I spent the rest of the flight trying to figure out who's ring you're supposed to put your finger into. Does one put one's finger in one's own ring or do you share the love? It did occur to me that perhaps the adopted crash position held the answer to the question and you were supposed to poke the person in front of you like some weird kind of conga line. Thankfully we didn't crash so it didn't matter.

As many of you that read this site know, I've got myself a van so that I can go fishing back in the UK. Now it's painted up, I'm ready to go!

Can you spot the punchline coming

So I was on a trip this week where I had to fly out to Houston on Wednesday for a meeting there on Thursday before heading back to Portland before going home. Well, the first leg of the journey, I ended up on a flight sat next to a guy that flew all over the country judging dairy cows.

Telegraphing the punchline

I have to say, he was quite interesting to talk to. Certainly different from the normal silence or someone in a similar consulting position as yourself. Anyway, he had to do some work, so he pulled up pictures of cows on his laptop and was walking through them. Each time one of the flight attendants walked up the isle, he would show them funny pictures to make them laugh - some of them were quite funny - I should have probably got them mailed to me, but there you go.

And here it is

Given that he was showing photos, I showed him a picture of Karen .... apparently she would have placed fourth!