Kris and Jo go to Paris

Airing my laundry

When I first moved to Paris, I thought not having a dryer would kill me.  I hated the thought of putting on crispy blue jeans and cardboard t-shirts.  In the end, it took no time at all to become habituated to crunchy clothing.  I even kinda like the fact that I no longer have to do floor squats before I can zip up my pants.  Furthermore, the fact that my jeans no longer shrink in the dryer, gives me a wonderfully false feeling of weight loss.  Look honey! I can eat all the chocolate I want and my Levis are still baggy in the butt!

Dessert

I'm beginning to think that I can start a blog that consists soley of funny pictures of my father.

This is from the first night of our Loire trip, which you can read more about here.

Chartres

We left for the Loire last week armed with  several Michelin Maps, a "Driving around the Loire" guide book, and copies of our car and hotel reservations.  Unfortunately, we left home without our long-johns and ear muffs.  We had rented a car, we thought, from Thrifty, which we were to pick up, we thought, from Orly airport (18 km from the center of Paris).  So, we took the train to Orly and made our way out to the car rental area, only to find that Thrifty was not there--and that we needed to catch the Holiday Inn shuttle to the Holiday Inn parking lot, the home of ADA car rentals, a local (read small) Thrifty partner.

Looong story short, we stood shivering in the freezing rain for an hour, waiting for the hotel shuttle that arrives "every 20 minutes". 

On our way to Amboise, we decided to stop at Chartres to see its famous cathedral.  The massive church was built between 1194 and 1220--which means somebody was haulin' some serious stone.  It is known for its two incongruous spires (one from the 12th century, the other from the 17th), as well as its impressively extensive collection of stained glass windows, some of which date from the 13th century. I am not big on churches per se.  Saint Chapelle, in Paris, for example, does nothing for me.  But I had heard Chartres was amazing and thought it would be silly to drive by it without stopping.

I will say this for it: Chartres is very...big.  OK, it is impressive in a very medieval-stone-cathedral-high-on-a-hill-sort-of-way. Mostly however, it was without a significant heat source.

You gonna drink that?

Raoul and Donna are back in Geneva. This picture was taken on the last day of their visit, at a cafe near Luxembourg Gardens. In the 5 days they were here, Donna and Raoul met more Parisians than I have in 5 months (my official tally is 2). The locals loved Raoul and declared him: "magnifique", "beau", "mignon". Oh la la, why don't they say that about me?  Maybe it's because I lack the cool green collar.

All in all, we had a great visit. John is still off waging war against the Bird Flu. Donna, meanwhile, is preparing for a vist from her Chicago/Seattle friend.  As for us, we are getting the place ready for the arrival of Kris's parents--tomorrow! I really don't know when I am going to get my thesis written.

Sexy blog sexy news: sexy, sexy, sexy!

Blogging tip: If you ever want a lot of random strangers to visit your weblog, include the word "sexy" in the title of your post.

And for those of you who are wondering about the title of Jo's last post, check out this link. (iTunes required. Here's a non-iTunes link. And don't worry, all the links are family friendly.)

Droppy has a secret

I just thought the good people at Proctor and Gamble might want to know that one of their employees has been adding his "natual extracts" to the dish soap. I wonder if I can get some sort of whistleblower reward for alerting them to this.

For everyone else: Please be aware that Droppy is terrible at keeping secrets. I wasn't even really talking to him when he blurted out this bombshell.

(I took this picture while I was staying with Stew last summer. I must admit it made me a little reluctant to use his dishes.)

French Women do Get Fat and I know Why...

My friend Jessica has written a provocative post about « truthiness » in which she brings up an issue that coincidentally, has intrigued me since my arrival in Paris. Contrary to Mireille Guilian’s  hardcover bestseller, French women do get fat and French children it seems, are getting fat at “alarming” rates.

Ah Dat is all that

We have become big fans of Ah Dat, the Hong Kong pug. If we ever make it to Hong Kong, we're going to see if we can arrange to meet him. (Looks like we may have to hurry.)

UPDATE: Peter and Lee (who just moved to Hong Kong) met Ah Dat in person today! That's quite a coincidence. Here's what Peter had to say. ('Sachmo' refers to our pug, Louis, as in Louis Armstrong.)

Today, Lee and I took a bus up to the peak in Hong Kong (it is still a holiday weekend here) and then walked down into the city. On the trail, there was a couple walking with a couple of dogs, one of them was Ah Dat -- without the head gear. We thought of you. He was breathing pretty hard but making good work of that steeeeep climb. I would dare say he is a little more fit than mister Sachmo but Louis could do it if he wanted...and if there was some food at the top!

Links to the best of Ah Dat are below the fold.

More flickr fun

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61421820@N00/47426431/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pugs/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pug/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adampsyche/47674535/

It is so easy to waste time with flickr!

Mental feebleness

I've been reading Culture Shock France: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette by Sally Adamson Taylor in preparation for moving over there. This is actually my second time through the book, and I think it's looking pretty grim.

The following is listed under "dont's", "Don't walk down the street smiling at everything. People will assume you are mentally feeble and possible [sic] dangerous."

This is going to be difficult for me. Just yesterday, I was walking between offices, when I started imagining what the plot for a movie called "Verby the Love Predicate" would look like. I have to admit that I was laughing at my own jokes. Today, I was humming (very softly), "I'm so vain, I probably think this song is about me." That then evolved into "I'm so vain, I probably think this dance is about me," followed by a crazy dance. (I wasn't actually dancing, just trying to imagine what the "vanity dance" would look like. The answer: It would look like a giant dork trying to dance.)

Maybe I am mentally feeble.

Quick joke

I'm really tired and need to go to bed, so this joke is a short (but not sweet) one that I made up.

Warning! Potty humor, quite literally, awaits those who dare to click the 'continue' link.

It's for real ...

... and it looks even bigger in person.

Why do I drink so much Metamucil? First of all, I don't really drink that much. The container has two sets of instructions: one for "use as a fiber laxative" and the other as a "daily supplement". I fall squarely in the latter category. Under those directions, it says, "Adults 12 yrs. & older: 1 rounded TABLESPOON in 8 oz of liquid 3 times daily." (The italics and capitalization are in the original.) I only use a teaspoon of the stuff, it's not particularly heaping, and I usually only have one or two servings a day.

It's a habit I got into during a brief (and relatively successful) stint on the South Beach Diet. Dr. Agaston recommended taking extra fiber before consuming carbohydrates because it reduced the rate you absorbed the carbs. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the fact that Metamucil contains a ton of sugar. I should probably be using the sugar free variety.

But the main reason I drink it is because it tastes just like Tang, but it's good for you.

This gives me an idea for a Metamucil commercial. Warning! It involves the consequences of using a laxative. I would avoid the 'continue' link if you have a weak stomach. (Actually, it's not that bad.)

A joke I made up

Standard warnings apply. There's no profanity, but this joke discusses adult topics. And by "adult", I mean "really, really juvenile".

Click "continue" if you dare.

Fun at work

Today's humor post.

Again, a warning: This doesn't contain any profanity, but it does talk about pooping. Enter at you own risk.

Also, it's not really a joke, but rather a way to freak out your coworkers.

(With an introduction like that, how can you not click 'continue'?)

Funny stuff

I'm going to try and write one "humor" entry every day. (I figure I have enough material for about a week.) It won't always be a joke or something funny, but instead sometimes I'll bore you with my musings about humor itself. I took a class in college called "The Philosophy of Humor" where we watched a lot of stand-up comics on video tape and then discussed exactly why they were funny. Though it's something I still often ponder, I know that the best way to unfunny a joke is to analyze it, so I hope to keep this kinda stuff to a minimum.

A word of warning. I like to think that my sense of humor can best be described as "Beavis and Butthead, all rolled into one". It's usually juvenile and gross, if not profane. Proceed at your own risk.

To start, I'll go with what I think is the funniest joke of all time. I didn't make this one up, but it always makes me smile when I think about it. This isn't the one from that study a couple years ago, which was, in fact, the lamest joke of all time. (It involved Sherlock Holmes and Watson camping in the woods.)

Again, a warning. There are no dirty words in this joke, but it does include a euphemism for "testicles". Click "continue" if you dare.

Bad joke

I miss Jo terribly, and it's only been three days. I'm constantly reminded of the saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder".

Anyway, in high school I had heard a joke where the punchline was based on this phrase. I couldn't really remember the joke outside of the punchline, so I've "reversed engineered" it.

Warning: This joke is really bad, and pretty gross, so read it at your own risk. (It does not contain profanity or adult situations.) The joke follows "below the fold", as they say.