GLAD MY SHOWS PRODUCER WASN'T AROUND

ABSENT PRODUCER

Today was one of the few days I was happy my shows' producer wasn't around.  If I had a show, or a producer it would have gotten awkward.

Producers like to put all sorts of stuff on the air.  Especially if it is awkward.  Especially if it is a rotund man in his underwear doing laundry.

Note that 'rotund' in this case is an American word meaning 'rounded' or 'fat'.  The rest of the world would have seen the show and said "Let me guess - there were co-stars but he ate them?"  In 'Merica we have a different set of values.

As they do in the rest of the world with regards to fixing things.

Anything dealing with water - right or wrong - in most of the world comes within the purview of the plumber.  Including washing machines.

If there are any actual professional plumbers within Eastern Europe, I have neither seen nor heard of them within the two years of living there.  It is always 'the guy'.  An acquaintance or friend who knows something about it and has a toolbox dating back to the Hittites.

The repairmen are always 'motivated amateurs'.  Their amount of motivation depends solely upon how well they know the person the repairs are being done for.

There are no professional plumbers because nobody pays for them - possibly due to having no money.

As a result, the house may be immaculate but the water works in the bathroom are always suspicious at best, a ticking time bomb at worst.

Because of this, one needs to have the skills to be able to clean their clothing while the washing machine is broken.  As it often will be.

Which brings me back to washing clothing in my underwear.

Because this is an ancient and secret skill I wanted to share it with you.



PREPARATION

Lock up your dwelling tight.  Draw curtains over the windows.  As you will be doing this naked or nearly naked, it is best not to give the neighbors too much of a peep show.  Unless that is your thing.

Turn off or disconnect all phones.  If you are the type of person who cannot live with their cell phone on at all times, put one kilogram of uncooked white rice into a large, covered container.  Place well out of the way.

At minimum, you will need one large bowl capable of holding all of your clothing.  Additional bowls of the same size makes the procedure easier.

Have a drying rack set up.  Note that at minimum you will have three hundred milliliters of water drip onto the area under the drying rack.  Placing the drying rack over carpeted area or baby's crib is not recommended.

Carefully fill one container with water and a little laundry soap.  Since your washing machine is quite obviously broken, you should have plenty of laundry soap sitting around not doing anything.

Get naked.

Carefully wash the clothing in the container with the soap.  Toss wet clothing in the sink.  Curse at Logan for being a slob and having a dirty sink.

Note how much water splashes over your naked body.

Good.

Yes.  Just like that.

....

After washing all of the clothing, transfer the wet garments into the now empty bowl.  Begin rincing the clothing.

Wring it out as well as you can.

Note, it will never be good enough.

Think of the wringing out as strength training for your hands and arms.

Note, if you are Arnold Schwarzenegger, be careful when you wring out your clothing you don't accidentally shred it.

Whoops!  There goes another shirt!

After wringing out your clothing, transfer it to the drying rack.

If suffering from addiction to your cellphone and your dumbass dropped it into the water (or toilet) place the cellphone into the bin of rice.  Cover it with rice.  Cover the bin and keep it away from your clumsy ass.

If you didn't drop the phone into the water, look smug and have the rice for dinner tonight.

Special note:  If you did drop the cellphone into the water and are using the rice to suck the moisture from the phone, do not cook and eat the rice before removing the cellphone.

Wait for the clothing to dry.  This will take hours.

Pose naked in the mirror.  Do not feel bad you are not attractive.  If you are attractive, feel bad for Logan.

And you're done!

IF IT BLEEDS, WE CAN KILL IT

TRAVEL + FOOD

Those who know me well (or have seen me at a distance) know I am a fat guy. I like food. A lot. I recently found a show called "Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations". He covers food in foreign countries. I've seen a few of his shows. He reminds me of Elliott Gould for some reason. He is snarky and sarcastic. So far, it's good to see. Obviously, I've not been watching shows to areas that I have no plans to go within the foreseeable future - like 'Cleveland'. Is that even a real place? I don't think so. [I realize people who are allegedly from 'Cleveland' might argue "Well, then you're not real either!" to which I respond "Well, duh."]

I did have a show on Italy on my computer but it was done by some lady who they had hired from the 'put people to sleep' company. I managed to get it off of my computer before I slipped into a coma.



German Stammtisch

Got back from 'German Stammtisch' (where people sit around a table speaking in German) and got reminded that 'Germans don't get American humor'.

I had said "I'm self deprecating."

One said (after we explained the phrase 'self deprecating') "Why? You want pity?"

I said "No, I do it for humor. Sometimes you blow things up for humor value."

Another replied "You explode things?"

I said "No. It's not like that. You just make things out of proportion to show the humor. Like instead of knocking you light someones house on fire to get them to come out."

"You burn down peoples' homes?"

Realizing I had completely lost them I replied "And wait outside with a machine gun."

Now, they think I am a sociopath.

Doh.

So - the lesson - if you are talking to someone born in a foreign country, slapstick is pretty much the big humor. Just fall down or talk about someone falling down in a humorous fashion. Don't make them think you'll come to their house, light it on fire and wait outside with a machine gun.

The sad thing is I had apparently lost at least one American in the discussion though I had a couple of others laughing.



"SMARTPEN"

Bert told me about this and I got to check it out at Best Buy. I didn't get to actually play with the pen but got to see a video at Best Buy rather. It looks interesting. Bert mentioned he is excited about getting one in the not too distant future. If he gives me his thoughts on it, I'll pass it on.

Yes, I do find it irritating that they continue to mangle existing couple words to describe something new. God help us if a time traveler came from the past and ran into our language. They would think we're complete idiots with words like 'smartpen', 'netbook' and 'texting'. It will be Idiocracy all over again.



BE A JEDI

You'd really think that Bert had less time on his hands than he apparently does with fixing two homes, moving, working and all of the rest but apparently he also found out it is actually possible for you to become a jedi. I haven't gotten to test out this new technology (nor do I think I will get to for awhile given my wandering coming up) but I will link an article Bert gave me as well as a youtube video that has some guy with a regular hand control on it for some reason.

One thing I found very troubling in the first article was that there is at least one person still jacking around in the 'virtual world' "Second Life". With the exception of 'if you speak into the mic people whose avatars are gathered around you closely can hear you and less so the further away you are' I found that to be nothing more than tons of dead space, advertisements and boredom.

Dealing with the new headset itself, I'm glad that they are making stuff like this although I think it will be a year or two before any decent games can incorporate this new, weird and exciting technology. It could be half a decade before any 'good' games can get it in there given the time it takes to understand new technology (assuming they release the codes to game companies) and plug it into a new game development cycle.

Games are certainly the driving force of new computer hardware. I can't really see someone developing anything like this without the mass market of games, though I think it is possible for this to be useful in a lot of stuff aside from games with clever thinking.

I'd like to thank Bert's diligence to new tech coming out and alerting me to it. If you (the reader) are thinking "I already knew about that!", well Bert beat you in the 'hey look, Logan, new shit!' notification so he gets the credit.