So, where were we?

Anyway, me and the Mrs. recently returned from our honeymoon in Curaçao, famous for producing an eponymous blue liqueur drunk only by teenagers in the dark, and Aruba, famous for causing people to start singing that Beach Boys song. On both islands they speak Papiamento, which is a patois of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and Edward James Olmos’ lines from “Blade Runner”

Seriously though, it’s a beautiful language and we did pick up a few phrases. “Bon dia means good day, “bon bini means welcome and “masha danki” I seem to recall, means, “Thank you very much” although Jean says it means, “Faster, donkey!"

By the time we left we had picked up enough to be able to read the sign above, which I’m pretty sure means, "Johnny Walker – the world’s bendiest whisky."

When we landed in Aruba we immediately heard some airport employees speaking Papiamento, and it sounded like this: “Papiamento papiamento papiamento. After we had been in the islands a bit longer, our ears became more attuned and we were able to hear more of the subtleties of the language, and it sounded more like, “Badda bing badda bing badda bing“

As we all know, the Internet is a strange and terrifying place. If you ever need to have that confirmed, go to Google, turn off the "SafeSearch" feature, and then do an image search for, well, anything. Pretty much the first hundred hits are going to be porn.

I first learned about SafeSearch when, for reasons too mundane to catalog, I had a legitimate business reason to search for a picture that could be used to illustrate the concept of hairiness. I did a Google image search for "hairy," then saw the SafeSearch button. I turned it off. I’m sure you can imagine the kinds of images the new search returned. Well, the same thing happened when I searched for that picture of a goat. Let’s just say I’d heard that kind of stuff went on, but I didn’t need to see it. My two new New Year’s resolutions:

1. Never turn off SafeSearch.

2. Never leave the house again.

Anyhoo, the goat thing:

I went into our local Wholefoods-which-used-to-be-Wellspring on Wednesday to buy some cheese for a party. My friend Jon was working in the cheese section “which used to have a sign that read "What a friend we have in cheeses"” and I asked him what he thought of a particular goat gouda that caught my eye. Jon said, "It’s mild, but it still has that goaty tang." I said, "I’m going to buy it just because you said goaty tang."

Yeah, that’s it. Welcome to Fistful of Plooble 2005, now featuring nothing but infrequent random slightly amusing things.

Happy New Year!

Still, you have to admit that’s one handsome goat.

Continue reading “Happy New Goat”

One day I’d like to open a store that sells nothing but ottomans. I’d call it The Footstool Empire. Then when people come in and say, "How come you didn’t call it The Ottoman Empire?" I’ll say, "Oh, yeah. That would have been a much better name."

“click to enlarge”

Last week sometime I was in the office of my co-workers Jen and Jerry. Jen has a houseplant “or I suppose, officeplant” on her windowsill that could use a little more room. She asked where she could get a plant stand. I offered my three standard responses:

a. Plant Stands ‘R’ Us
b. I’m Not Gonna Pay a Lot for This Plant Stand
c. www.plantstands.com

But it turns out there really is a plantstands.com. I suppose it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It was the first place we thought to look for a plant stand, so it was probably a smart decision on the part of the owner. But that’s not the reason I’m giving them the award. They’re getting the award because of the link in the menu bar that says, “Make Us Your Homepage.” Now that takes some chutzpah. Forget Yahoo, MSN and The New York Times. Now you can get the latest information on plant stands whenever you open your browser! At last!

And you know what? It’s not even a very good place to buy a plant stand.