A Dingo's got my Barbie!!!

Deja vu, again

Last night just as I was about to go to bed, I noticed that there was documentary series about the 60s that about to start, I was tired so I recorded it for viewing today. This afternoon, I remembered what I had done, so I rewound the tape and hit the play button. The tape started with some of that self promotion crap that you get on public television between shows, so I decided to make a cup of coffee rather than fast forward it.

As I was waiting for the jug to boil (hey, I'm an Aussie, we drink instant, deal with it) and generally putzing around the kitchen, I could hear the TV, but wasn't really paying attention to it. Slowly the white noise crept into my conscience when I could hear a Southern American accent telling me that he had ordered his forces to attack because of blah, blah, I tuned out again, blah, blah blah clear and present danger, followed by voice-over announcing that this was later proved to be a lie.

What I assumed to be a newsreader, delivering a news update, had caught my attention, "Ah-ha!" I thought with all the smugness of someone who is always right. "They finally nailed old Dubya! But How did they prove he was lying?" So I stopped what I was doing and turned to watch the TV. I was shocked, confused and somewhat dismayed to see that it was Lyndon Johnson addressing the nation with the news that he was escalating the Vietnam conflict....When will we learn.

Ha ha ha!

I'm sorry, I'm not laughing about the tragedy of war. As I was typing this, I was listening to the news, it seems that a court case in Sydney has just been declared a mis-trial after racking up costs of over five hundred thousand dollars becasue one of the defense lawyers noticed that a few of the jurors were writing their notes not only horizontally, but vertically as well. When she quietly snuck a look, she saw that they were all playing Sudoko! The judge asked the foreman about it (who was one of the ones playing) and she said that the testimony was boring, so after three weeks and 185 witnesses, the (drug trafficing) trial was declared a complete stuff up! Ha ha ha! You gotta love our respect for the law.

To all you muthas.

Having neither children nor living parents, both Mother's Day and Father's Day are pretty much non events in the Willowtree household(s). However, that's not to say that I don't wish all you muthas out there a Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy it girls, you've earned it.

Now, onto other news...the obligatory Belle update.

When I worked in IT, our mantra when it came to Analysis, Design and Implementation was "It's all about managing expectations", and this was without a doubt the most important aspect of the project.

What has any of this got to do with Belle? Good questions, and I'm glad you asked... Despite some early success with getting her leg to flex just a little, it plateaued out fairly early on in the piece, which was somewhat of a disappointment to me, as I was expecting to have her leg fully functional by the time I had to take her back to the surgeon. I was also expecting the vet to be disappointed in the progress to date.

Imagine my surprise when he was unexpectedly pleased with the results. While my expectations were that I'd have her leg working by now, his expectations were that the leg would be completely rigid by now and therefore no more than a useless appendage. So I left the doggie hospital with a much lighter heart than I did two weeks ago.

Hmmm...

One lump or two?

For those of you out there who have missed the ol' WT lately, you can blame Marnie (and her gay boyfriend Mark) for my absence. The pair of them have dragged me into their murky world of semi-illicit entertainment, a world devoid of light, a world where healthy exercise, proper nutrition and acceptable standards of hygiene are non existent. Yes, that's right, those two nefarious nogoodnicks have got me hooked on streaming movies. And not the kind that you post on YouTube either. I'm not talking about five minute clips of dogs and cats frolicking (or in my dogs' case, licking). No, I'm talking about genuine, current movies (as in still showing in cinemas). I can't say any more in case the Feds have got my blog tapped. Now I'm not saying that I spend all my time watching movies with Chinese subtitles, but there was a strange sound (not unlike when velcro is pulled apart) last time I got up from my office chair after a recent marathon session.

So thanks to M&M, you've missed out on some brilliant posts that never got written since I was otherwise engaged. And let me tell you there were some real gems amongst them too, prize winners all! Why a couple of those unwritten posts would have made War and Peace look like a really long book. But then, just when I was resigned to another of my "Sorry, I've got nothing to post about" posts, something happened.

I was having dinner and mulling over how I would put into words the fact that I have nothing to put into words, when Bentley came to the rescue!

He was just sitting on the floor watching me eat (which, if I had any kind of conscience that could possibly bother me), when he let loose a tripple fluterbuster with reverse pike that had all the resonance of well tuned eight cylinder engine. I swear I felt the floor vibrate! The way he was sitting, his sphincter was on the wood floor and as a result, there were vibrations of seismic proportions. As those of you with dogs would know, canines are really sneaky little bastards (not as sneaky as felines, but when it comes to butt pollution they can be pretty darned covert), and in most cases they are deserving of the abuse directed towards them when the air turns rancid. Oh sure, we've all dropped the odd SBD* and blamed the pooch, but mostly it really is them, they are the masters of the sneak attack. But this time he was caught dead to rights! He literally trumpeted his achievement.

So what does he do? He looks up at me with a startled expression as if to say "Should farts have lumps in them?"

Then he gets up real slow, smells the floor where his butt was, looks back at me, and as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, walks into the living room, where he sits down for a few seconds, and having lost all faith in his sphincter not to betray him, gets up again and smells the carpet where he just sat. I've never seen such a crisis of confidence in my life, it was hysterical. And as if to add insult to incontinence, if he hadn't played the butt trumpet I never would have known, because it didn't even smell!

*Silent But Deadly

**Nothing has changed on the Belle front, in case you were going to ask.

I don't even have a title.

WT awoke with feelings of anxiety so palpable that his chest was being crushed...hang on a tick...sorry, that was just one of the dogs trying to wake him up, never mind. Alas and alack, even though he wasn't having an anxiety attack as he first thought, he was still engulfed in a sense of dread. The relationship had been on shaky grounds for some time now, and the atmosphere was not healthy, in fact it was downright toxic...nope, that would be the dogs again. Anyway, things just weren't right.

To try to get a sense of where it all went wrong, we need to go back to the beginning. It started out much like any relationship, with much uncertainty and a few tentative attempts at finding out what each other was about, followed by a bit of story telling and some photo sharing. As they became more confident with each other they began making new friends as a pair. And make no mistake, WT was thrilled to be part of such a dynamic couple, he revelled in the new activities he could join in now that he finally fit in, not to mention all the new friends he was making.

Like most new romances it was all excitement and anticipation in the beginning; WT constantly thought about TD when they weren't together and he couldn't wait until they hooked up and immersed themselves in the scene. Things escalated rapidly from there, to the point where they were the toast of the town, and WT (normally a loner) was constantly high on the adrenaline buzz that he got from all the new-found friendships they had made.

Everything rolled along brilliantly for about a year and a half, when without any warning whatsoever, things seemed to change. There was no longer the high anticipation of the encounter, and WT found it hard to even come up with anything to say. They just seemed to drift apart. And just as in the wild, when the pack  senses that one of them is wounded and leaves it behind, their friends began to visit less frequently until in the end all that was left was a few long term loyal supporters (and some close friends who never visit, cough Marnie, Melissa, Mark cough).

WT and TD did their best to keep up appearances fro a few months, but despite their best efforts they seemed unable to inject any life into the relationship. And so it was that after much soul searching WT and the Dingo finally decided it was time to seek blog counselling.

Feel free to offer advice.

Silent Saturday.

Loss.

We all mourn the lost of certain things, for example I mourn the loss of some of my beloved hair , the ability to party all night, and patience with children. I mourn the loss of good, well written television (despite the current writers' misguided belief that they are indispensable). I mourn the loss of my love of travel, the thrill that I got getting my gear together and putting on my travelling clothes, the excitement I got waiting at airports and train stations.

I mourn the world's general loss of innocence, humanity's seeming loss of respect for others and world leaders' loss of their grip on reality (ok, that one is really just Dubya). I mourn the loss of well made, easy to fix cars, being able to find a seat on a train, being able to find a seat on a train without some asswipe with an iPod who thinks I'll like their music as much as they do, being able to find a seat anywhere without having to deal with some ignorant, lowlife piece of shit with a mobile phone who thinks I'm interested in hearing their conversation.

I mourn the loss of my ability to deal with life's little annoyances without going ballistic. I mourn the loss of not being able to sit down anywhere in my own house without having to move an animal first (I know I could fix that, but I also mourn my loss of motivation).

But most of all, I mourn the loss of Diners, those funny looking, almost extinct American institutions, I've been lucky enough to eat in a few of them, and it's always a great experience. While it's convenient to say that it's simply and evolutionary thing, and we must move with the times, I lay the blame firmly at the base of the golden arches, and our willingness to accept reconstituted dog shit as food instead of insisting on quality. Are we all such impatient, cheap bastards that we can wait for our food to be cooked and then pay a fair price for it?

Anyway, what's the point? Well funny I should ask, the point is that I stumbled upon a clip I enjoyed the other day. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I'd like to share it with you, it's a tribute to Diners. I hope you like it too...

 

The song may be familiar to you, it's by Martin Sexton and originally came to notice in a Scrubs compilation scene. It you'd prefer that instead, it's here.

PS. I wouldn't mourn the loss of a few kilos.

Updated** Here's the lyrics in case you're interested...

You might have seen one out in Minnesota
Or maybe down by the sea in Sarasota
But they were made back in Worcester Mass
Of aluminum and Bakelite and glass

Like a locomotive they were streamlines
And the blue prints were drawn up from a dream of mine
Slap 'em up put 'em on the train
Out to Michigan up to Maine

You may find a diner down in Georgia or
Carolina off the twenty by the Piggly Wiggly
In the country out of Waynesboro

Or when it's getting late and rainy out in New York State
You hang a louie off the thru-way
And you go and grab yourself a cheeseburger
At the little gem diner off the six niner

Diner my shiny shiny love
In the night you're all I'm thinking of
Diner my shiny shiny love

The cruiser pulls in where the trooper's always stop
As we dine over the chrome and formica table top

The cashier she always squints
By the gum and the bowl of mints
She's tapping her toe
To the Dean Martin on the consolette
Booth service and a cigarette we're loving it so

Side of fries a dollar
Or the haddock plate two ninety five
A rootbeer float a pepsi
And be sure to save some room for some apple pie
Better make it a-la-mode

Chorus

Dean Martin god rest his soul
Talkin' to me from the cereal bowl
There's a couple from the show me state
Knockin' back a little meatloaf plate
Diner my shiny shiny love.
                                       

Well that was a huge success!

To say that the response to my craption contest was underwhelming is putting it mildly.  While the response was small (what it lacked in numbers....it also lacked in brilliance), it was interesting. I now realise that not everyone has the same thought patterns as me, and I guess some might say that's a good thing, go figure!

Evenstar, Robin and Sandy each deserve an award for excellence, it's such a shame there aren't any, so I'll just give them some linky love instead. A few of you made the Roller-coaster connection, so to put you out of my misery he's what I had in mind...

Depends on your point of view

Some of you may think my dogs are pretty cool, Dirty Uncle Mark in particular seems to think Bentley is somewhat of a Superdog. When he mentioned this to me, I scoffed at the notion, as I see a totally different dog. So, in an effort to show me just how wrong I was, he sent me this photo which, he swears on a stack of bibles, has not been modified in any way whatsoever.

While I'm not about to call him a liar, I can't help but think this at odds with the truth. But you can decide for yourself...

Okay, I accept that this paints an impressive picture of Bentley the Superdog. However, having just gone through a night of severe thunderstorms, and trying to get him to come out from under the bed, I'm afraid all I see is Bark Bent

We're in good hands.

The hands are good, it's just a shame they are attached to a knucklehead...

Practice

They're just misunderstood.

The other day I was reading an article about Donald 'Roadkill Rug' Trump and his efforts to inflict himself on the unsuspecting rural folk of Scotland by building what, in his own humble words, would have been "the world's greatest golf course".

It seems that the good folk of Aberdeen, for some unfathomable reason, didn't see the benefit of nearly 1000 holiday homes and 500 private houses being built on their rare and vulnerable stretch of sand dunes. Initially the planning development was approved (pause here for snickering at the thought of local government corruption). On hearing of the approval, Trump's personal arse licker (that's arse kicker to everyone else) hailed the decision as vindication of the care and thought the Trump Organisation had given to the planning application.

However that didn't last long. The application then had to be approved by those who mattered, and here's where the wheels fell off. The following is directly from the Sydney Morning Herald article, and I think it's a pretty good explanation of why most sane folk think Trump and his sycophants are a bunch of cocksuckers.

On Thursday night, a bitterly disappointed Mr Sorial said Mr Trump was "very shocked" by the decision. "It's not just a loss for us but for the people of Aberdeen and the shire. The members of the council's infrastructure committee have chosen to protect a pile of sand."

Mr Sorial rejected accusations the Trump team had been "arrogant and patronising" in its approach. "There's a view we are arrogant. We are not arrogant. We set certain standards. It may be incomprehensible to smaller minds, but we have always set high standards. We presented them with a plan and hoped they could open their minds, but it was too much for them."

Get fucked you morons!

Apropos the article, here's an interesting segue, I have no idea what the hell this thing is all about.  However, it's obviously been done by a bunch of puerile, bloody minded knuckleheads with too much time on their hands (ah, that's why you included it in a post about the Trump gang, now I get it!). It is interesting though.

Read the instructions!

Arrggghhh!!! I just spent an hour coming up with my cinquains for Pensieve's Poetic Licence, trouble is, it doesn't start until next Monday! Talk about cornfusing. Well screw it! I don't spend more than an hour on any post so I'm just going to =have a quick squizz at the interwebs and see if I can find something funny.

Ok, how about these....

There's a lot more of these if you have the time.

And finally, this is funny but may be offensive to some (NSFW)...

The results have been tabulated.

Thank you all for participating in my well conceived, brilliantly executed, in depth scientific experiment on blogging trends. Ha ha ha ha! Man I'm such a pudding head, that's too much hyperbole even for me! Ok, let me rephrase that first sentence...After yesterday's monumental dummy-spit because I didn't feel my post got the recognition it deserved, I noticed something interesting. Hmmm, yes, that's seems to be a more apt description of what happened.

So here are the results of the whine experiment :

1. Well researched post of an interesting musical oddity - 20 comments*.
2. Two sentence whine saying there will be no post - 37 comments.

Conclusion: If I really am serious about attracting comments, I should stop posting.

As a thank you for participating in the experiment, I'm having a little competition (Australians are ineligible). Here's the question. "Cartographically speaking, where in Australian do most women sit".

The prize is your choice of either of these gems...

Pretty sweet little prizes heh? (and yes, the t-shirt is brand new, it's an XL so if you have boobs it should still fit).  The competition will close when I get the correct answer.

* The last 6 comments were after my whine so it's not clear if they were just sympathy comments.

MaBloPa post #15