Instructions On How To Clean Your Toilet

  1. Put both lids of the toilet up and add 1/8 cup of pet shampoo to the water in the bowl.
  2. Pick up the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
  3. In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids. You may need to stand on the lid.
  4. The cat will self agitate and make ample suds. Never mind the noises that come from the toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.
  5. Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a “power-wash and rinse”.
  6. Have someone open the front door of your home. Be sure that there are no people between the bathroom and the front door.
  7. Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
  8. The cat will rocket out of the toilet, streak through the bathroom, and run outside where he will dry himself off.
  9. Both the commode and the cat will be sparkling clean.

Sincerely,
The Dog

The Gender Genie

The Gender Genie is quite remarkable. Copy-paste a heap of your journal entries (and state that journal entries is what they are) and it will attempt to guess your gender, based on the language used (and partially explain it’s reasoning).

I’m apparently male, with a two-thirds certainty. Not bad.

Story I Heard This Morning

There’s nothing worse than a snotty doctor’s receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong in a room full of other patients. I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.

An 86-year-old man walked into a crowded doctor’s office. As he approached the desk, the receptionist said, “Yes sir, what are you seeing the doctor for today?”

“There’s something wrong with my dick,” he replied.

The receptionist became irritated and said, “You shouldn’t come into a crowded office and say things like that.”

“Why not? You asked me what was wrong and I told you,” he said.

The receptionist replied, “You’ve obviously caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and then discussed the problem further with the doctor in private.”

The man replied, “You shouldn’t ask people things in a room full of others, if the answer could embarrass anyone.”

The man walked out, waited several minutes and then re-entered. The receptionist smiled smugly and asked, “Yes? ”

“There’s something wrong with my ear,” he stated. The receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice.

“And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?”

“I can’t piss out of it,” the man replied.

Nightmare Before Halloween

Despite all the fun last night brought, the alcohol evidently went to my head somewhat and I had a particularly awful nightmare. I dreamt that, later this month (on the 29th, in fact), Claire dies of a terminal illness. I don’t remember much of it; only that we were making preparations for Halloween when she died (we were buying face paint in a shop not unlike a cross between Stars [strange ‘alternative’ goodies in Aberystwyth] and the Post Office around the corner from my Dad’s house [as I remember it as a kid]).

Fucking frightening. Not a good start to the day.

Right – a few more things to do at work, then I’m off to help talk to some Freshers about volunteer work.

A Very Happy Unbirthday, To Andy

Went to Andy‘s unbirthday party (sadly the original party, this summer, had to be cancelled as nobody who matters could make it). That was fun – drinking and TwisterTM. Will try to post pictures as they become available (JTA has more).

I played Twister until I hurt my back. Then I stopped. Andy did remarkably well, and won two successive games.

Update 7 October 2019 (15th anniversary of this post). Andy’s LiveJournal is long-dead and purged, but I’ve recovered the text of his post, which I linked to, from archive.org:

The Birthday which was not a Birtday [Oct. 7th, 2004|01:13 am]

[ mood | Mood? Me? ]
[ music | Virgin radio – quiet can’t wake anyone ]

Wow people turned up I was impressed. Yay for Andy’s Aber friends. Wish more people could have been here but many studying in silly far away places so couldn’t but thanks all who did show especially those who engaged in twister. You have either all gone home and/or gone to bed so will leave you all for the night. Love al my party friends… Andy

Things That Have Been Happening

I’ve had a couple of moderately hectic days, and somehow haven’t found time to tell you all about them yet. Let’s see what I can remember:

The Tale Of Troma Night 50
Troma Night 50 was a success: a chance to re-watch some of the films that made Troma Night’s 1 and 2 so… bizarre. And it was great to see folks like JTA, Andy, and Liz returning once more to the enlightened watchers of awful films (Liz reports favourably on Troma Night 50).

The Tale In Which Geek Night Returns
And just to make the weekend that little bit more fun, we had a (long-missed) Geek Night on Sunday night: two games of Chez Geek and one of Carcassonne. Sadly, my copy of Munchkin hasn’t arrived yet. The idiots who were supposed to be sending it to me addressed the package as follows:

Daniel Huntley
The Flat
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 XYZ

…completely missing the address line. And then they were surprised when the package was returned to them by the post office. Grr.

The Tale Of Kit And The “Awwww” Chain
It’s kind of sweet that Kit’s posted a declaration of love onto his blog. And now everybody’s posting a whole chain of “Awwww” responses. Looks like I’m not the only one who found this a happy little uplifting post. It’s the little things, really.

The Tale Of The Students Who Couldn’t Use A Bus
Yesterday, riding my usual bus to work (the 526 to Penryncoch) we stopped, as usual, as the bus stop on North Parade. At this time of year, all the students have returned and a lot of them can be seen at this bus stop waiting for the morning ‘university service’ bus to take them up the hill. Obviously these particular students are unable to read, because events unfolded a little like this:

First Student: Up to the university, please.
Bus Driver: This bus doesn’t go to the university.
<university service bus pulls up behind>
First Student: Oh. Can I just go up the hill then?
Bus Driver: No; this bus isn’t going up the hill. This bus is going to Penryncoch.
First Student: Oh.
<first student gets off bus again, making room for second student – stood behind first student – to step up to the driver. meanwhile, students are getting on the double-decker parked behind, which has the words “University Service” on the front. second student puts a ten pound note in the cash tray and stares at the driver>
Bus Driver: Where are you going?
<second student spends two or three seconds staring at the driver with a look on her face that implies that she’s never heard of buses going anywhere other than to her destination>
Second Student: To the university!
<the university service bus pulls out and overtakes us, and starts going up the hill>
Bus Driver: No. This bus does not go to the university. This bus does not go up Penglais Hill at all. This bus is going to Penryncoch. That’s why the large luminescent letters on the front of the bus say… Penryncoch.

How difficult can it be? You’re probably a second year or above, now (by the fact that you’re presumably living in town) – pull your finger out.

The Tale Of Claire Getting A Job
I found myself in Game a couple of days ago, where a student was applying for a position working for them in the run-up to Christmas. They turned him down flat, of course, because he was planning to leave town as soon as term finished – 18th December, or thereabouts – which kind-of defeats of the object of Christmas staff. But “a-ha”, I thought, and grabbed an application form for Claire, who applied and was subsequently snapped-up. So Claire’s got a job again, which is nice.

The major side effect of this is that it’s very liklely that we’ll both be spending Christmas in Aberystwyth. Which is unusual and kind-of scary. Still; we’ve agreed that we’ll try and zip around the country and visit our respective families the following week, if we can’t manage to do so otherwise (Claire will be working on both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day). Hmm… Nothing more to add to that at the moment, so “Hmm” will do.

In other news, she’ll probably get a staff discount. Yay. =o)

The Tale That Involves The Technium
SmartData is moving by instalments. By this time week-after-next, we ought to be in our shiny new WDA-sponsored office in the newly-built Aber Technium, on the harbour’s edge. This is a win for several reasons:

  • I can walk to work. I mean – I can meaningfully walk to work. A one-hour walk, like where we are not, isn’t “meaningful”.
  • We’ll have a 2Mbit dedicated line, with no contention. I smell DVD downloads.
  • We have a bigger office, shiny new desks, a proper server room, a meeting room of our own, and a balcony.
  • We’ll have a new 0845 phone number, which looks all shiny and professional.
  • If I get my way <big grin>, we’ll also have a digital whiteboard and projector. Toy.

Will keep you posted.

I’m wasting time and I have plenty to get on with, so that’s enough of an update for now. Kittens.