A friend of mine is forever looking at ways to earn extra cash, and this fascination has taken a turn for the worst - she is trying to involve Mrs Ed in a plan to offer home-cooked meals to locals working too hard to cook for themselves.

Mrs Ed is a great cook, but like 99% of wives who can cook, she doesn't particularly like to. This subtle detail was lost on our friend and it isn't hard to imagine my wife's horror and private wtf reaction to the idea of preparing meals in her spare time.

The basic scheme is possibly a good idea, except Mrs Ed has no desire to fill in the holes in the plan - to travel to wholesale butchers and food stores at 4am in order to buy good quality ingredients at a low enough price for her to make money - to deliver food - to get licenses...

Another issue that escaped the entrepreneuse' plan - Mrs Ed loves Indian and other spicy food and dislikes preparing junky dishes. Our friend jumped into creative mode, saying she was all for that different, exotic angle, but after a quick resumé of meals eaten recently at our neighbors, we are fairly sure that Mrs Ed would be cooking food that appealed to a minority of her and me.

To bridge the cultural gap, Mrs Ed suggested that hypothetically, taboule and humus were a couple of mild and delicious Middle Eastern dishes that would hurt no one's taste buds. Our friend looked at her like she was talking Syrian! What's taboulé? She didn't seem o like the explanation, but undaunted, she jumped into entrepreneur on the backfoot mode and suggested we prepare a menu and explain what each dish contained.

Yeah, let's keep it really simple and supply crockery and cutlery and go wash it all up for them afterwards, all included in the price. And why not eat the food for them too, while we are at it.

Every which way we looked at it, it was a bad idea for Mrs Ed. Added to which, I was focussed on one major scenario - the atmosphere if any of Mrs Ed's food were ever left uneaten. My god, my life wouldn't be worth living, and I would probably end up wearing the curries.

For her next idea, may I suggest our friend watches the Big Idea? At least Donny has a grip on reality.

Once upon a rant, I raised the question of inventions we could really do without. Star of the show was the 5-blade razor that forever clogs up with soap and stubble and adds hours to the shaving process. To add insult to expensive injury, they also don't last 5 times as long as a single blade.

My solution has been to stick two fingers to fashion and cool, and revert to a simple single blade throwaway Bic type razor. But not even this is ideal in my troubled world of perfection! It is environmentally unfriendly. Not that my one blade a week is going to burst a landfill, but multiplied out by the million, that is one major yellow and blue pile of plastic handles building for future generations to worry about.

A non-disposable single razor blade would therefore be ideal, but who makes razors that last forever? Actually Infinity Razors do! Just $19.95.

This ultimate razor isn't perfect either

I would like to claim that the Infinity life-time guaranteed razor blade is the ultimate solution for this particular aspect of daily life. Indeed, the Infinity Razor is a tungsten carbide-impregnated steel marvel guaranteed never to go blunt, and leaves men and women kissably smooth!!!! so what's to dislike? There are two downsides as far as I can tell, (or not tell, but guess.)

Firstly, judging by the crappy promo photos, it has a couple of blades, in which case, it will still clog. So there is till a hole in the market for people like me looking for an uncomplicated shave.

Second, the infinity Razor is sold in pairs. This sounds like an advantage, but it is a ploy by manufacturers who know the blades will be lost long before they ever go blunt under warranty. Offering 2 razors for the price of one may seem generous, but they are doubling their chances of a second sale down the line.

My fear would be that if you lose both razors after enjoying such a close shave, you may be tempted to take the free knife they include in the bundle and slash the wrists of the woman who kept misplacing it in her part of the bathroom.

Conconclusion

On balance, Infinity Razors are almost the perfect answer for most, but I am still a Bic man, albeit with a troubled environmental conscience. Maybe I should lobby the Infinity people to make a one blade wonder for me, for $10.95, no extra knives required. That'll do it and shut me up till it goes missing.

Looking through keywords that drew surfers to The Pisstakers, I noticed one phrase in particular: 100 ways to screw a house boat renter. I like their thinking. Unfortunately I had no luck finding a solution - or any mention of anything enlightening that I had written on the subject.

Unperturbed, I read through a site that gave one-to-one answers to power boat owners in need of advice. The following answers from Ed bear no resemblance to the original accurate answers, so, if you own a power boat, don't take time off from drinking and being loud to implement my suggestions!

Water in the bilge

I recently purdhased a 94 sunbird 170 with a evenrude 115 hp outboard.The boat had less than 100 hours operation. All seemed well first time out till I noticed quite a bit of water in the bilge. After a couple of trips we find it takes on 10 to 15 gallons just docked overnight...

Thank you, Pete from Florida. Crack open your 12th Bud of the morning and sit down.

My suggestion to you is to double your insurance and make sure you burn any paper trail leading to this question. Your boat is about to sink without trace with all onboard, within the next day or two. This prediction has nothing to do with the bilges, which will take on water for as long as you care to put up with leaky hoses and a cracked hull. The truth is, Hurricanes Betty, Charlie and Di are all headed your way, and regardless of any repairs I can suggest, your boat will be in a tree in Montana before the end of the week. But as I said, make sure no insurance company gets wind of your boat's current issues, else you will receive no compensation whatsoever. Enjoy the rest of your beery day.

My power boat will not go slow

I just finished restoring my first wooden Lyman. It is 17ft with a 65hp Mercury 650. I am having problems with it at low speeds while in gear. If I give it more gas the motor kicks in and runs great. Also while at idle at the dock out of gear it runs great. Starts every time without any hassle. The area police are giving me problems because I cannot keep the boat running at low speeds in the channel.

This sounds like a timing problem ie you need to better time your high speed sprints through local waters. I know where you live, and I know the local police too. They have 8-minute donut breaks on the hour every hour between 5am and noon, then it is an hour for coffee and chicken, before resuming for decaf coffee and sugar-free pastry breaks till 5am. That sounds like plenty of opportunity for you to pollute the waters and scare fishermen and bathers shitless without getting busted, yer yahoo.

It's all in the gimble

I found information about a gimble bearing. Should I pay the money to have this inspected sometime?

Well that depends on a couple of things. First off, it depends on whether you want to break down or not, doesn't it? I don't know if you get a kick out of bobbing in the middle of the ocean without an engine. If you do, neglect your gimble.

It also depends on whether you believe in paying money in return for gimble inspection services! I guess that in coming here asking for advice for free, you are probably the sort of person who tells Pedro to drop everything now to check your gimble, then make every lame excuse not to pay him till next Thursday - without specifying which Thursday!

Course you have to pay to have a gimble inspected. Duh.

If you have any more questions on any topic, send them in and I will answer them as best I dare.

10 tips to avoid the mistakes (or oversights) people make before they even start painting. These are brought to you by a former master painter who has seen it all, and as an apprentice made all the following mistakes - once or twice!

Don't leave paint spots all over your best furniture.

The replacement cost of spotty leather couches is a lot more than the added value of a coat of paint on your ceiling and walls. To avoid wrecking a room that you are trying to make look prettier, you should remove all furniture from the room before you start work.

If removal is impossible, pile the furniture up in the middle of the room and cover it all with plastic sheeting. Use masking tape to make sure the plastic doesn't slide off when you aren't looking. This usually happens when you have a loaded paint roller spinning. And don't stack your chairs so high you can't even paint the ceiling.

Don't paint around pictures and wall clocks

Before you do any work, even before removing furniture, take all pictures and wall ornaments and books and CDs and Playstations out the room and box them up somewhere safe. Who wants to get claustrophobic dancing around stuff that shouldn't be in the way?

If you try and cut corners and paint round the picture, not only will it take you longer than necessary, but your spotless frame will end up with paint on it. Added to that, the next person who removes it will see a dark or different colored patch AND a ridge tracing the outline of the picture. Not a great legacy.

Don't paint over nails and picture hooks

Before you start painting, don't stop at removing pictures. Remove the picture hooks and nails too - carefully. Don't forget this small detail. I can assure you there is nothing fun having to pick the fluff out of drying paint after your roller sleeve has been torn to shreds on old picture hooks.

Don't walk paint all over the carpet.

Another important precaution before painting is to lay PLASTIC dust sheets on the floor and stick them to the carpet or flooring with masking tape. Then lay cotton sheets on top of that. This will make sure you don't stamp paint drops through the cotton sheet onto the floor. It will also ensure you walk around carefully. If you run, you will skid, go head over heels and probably end up with paint flowing off your face and onto the floor - but at least the plastic will save the carpet from ruin.

Don't leave painted footprints all over the house

Following on from the above point, please lay a folded cotton sheet outside the door to the room you are painting, and when you go out the room, bend over and take your shoes off. Unless you have a pair of artistically soled shoes, any random paint print patterns will detract from the appeal of your stair carpet or beautiful slate kitchen floor.

Don't get paint on your clothes or in your hair

You have prepared the room, now it is time to make sure you are in good shape. Don't believe a word about non-drip paint. It is like a magnet to expensive items. Jeans and dress shirts can be as expensive to replace as spotty armchairs, and who wants paint in their fancy haircut? The easiest way to keep clean is to wear coveralls and a cap. If you are worried about getting too hot, go commando. You are at home, if you can't do it there, where can you?

With regard to the cap, don't wear a woolen hat, because if you think you are so clumsy you need a hat, you are bound to brush the hat against the ceiling or walls, and leave it covered in fibers, just after you painted it.

Don't paint the dog or cat

What did your pet ever do to deserve being striped or patched in off-white? Ban it from the work area and threaten it with grounding if you see it anywhere close. To be doubly sure of avoiding any animal footprints around the house, buy them coveralls and plastic boottees. It won't be fun for them, but you will have a laugh watching them try to walk.

Don't paint the glass in your windows

There is nothing more satisfying than well-painted windows. A straight paint line overlapping about 2mm onto the glass, , sharp corners, and no paint spots in sight. To achieve this, either practice for 7 years doing it freehand, or cheat with masking tape.

I don't recommend removing the glass first, because if you are that bad at painting, you are the sort of person who will put their hand through the glass and splatter paint everywhere. And paint is a bigger bitch to remove than paint.

Don't paint the car

If you intend painting outside, make sure your cars are a long way from the house. Don't just park them around the other side from where you are working - the wind is not your friend when it is laden with paint particles.

Don't believe the saying, If you can piss you can paint.

How many people say they can paint, and when the job is finished you wonder what they did to make a shabby room look worse? Straight lines, smooth finishes and a completely finished job are not easy to achieve. If you are paying a professional make sure it is a great job, if not, and you pay them, you just added to the downward plunge in work standards.

Let me know if this was of use and if you want me to point out ways to avoid mistakes when you actually start painting in earnest.

I while back I did an experiment in the interest of public information and signed up to MyFreeImplants.com. I haven't got round to deleting the email subscription yet and get an occasional message reminding me of some new opportunity!

Out of curiosity I shot across to the site for a quick look-see and landed on the blogs. At first sight, I couldn't work out why the first girl blogger needed any implants, her butt looked plenty big enough in her avatar. Not to worry, a few spots down, there was actually an amusing joke.

I am not politically correct and don't work in an office environment, but if you get fired reading the joke, you were working for someone who really needs to loosen up a bit.

Did you hear about the married Jehova's Witness who got blind drunk after dumping the woman he had been having an affair with for years. Best not get too deep into the religious grounds for his actions, but suffice to say, he couldn't have committed any more sins had he tried. (True story.)

Two Muslims were arguing and the insults grew worse, until the argument was killed stone dead by, "At least my grandfather didn't fart in the mosque." (True story.)

Did you hear about the dyslexic Devil Worshipper who sold his soul to Santa?

Are you familiar with the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac who stays awake all night wondering if there is a Dog

Error 666, hard drive possessed.

Operating systems are like religions, except people feel more strongly about operating systems.

Whatever your religion, or lack of it, there is always something to talk about, but it's probably best not to.

I used to drink coffee every Sunday morning before starting myBlogLog Sunday, but I stopped that in favor of water as my kick start of choice. Some kick start, more a very light touch on an insensitive part of the brain.

As part of my health drive, (now it is sunny you get that weird sense of health) I maybe drink 3 cups a week, only at home, only in the morning, and almost never at Starbucks. (I am not part of their average domographic who visit 4 or 5 times a week, and the pile of unspent $4's in my bulging wallet and nothing on a credit card under beverage is testament to that bucking of the trend.)

Feeding all that riveting information and then some, into a computer-generated icon-generator, I can officially declare myself half asleep and struggling with the following level of addiction:


Mingle² - Free Online Dating

Quite where the online dating fits into all this, I have no idea, but if the price of knowing I am half addicted, is promoting Mingle2, I will go for that.

See how far gone you are!

It is times like this when you want to curl up in someone's suitcase and disappear into the horizon.

I already mentioned how I got over the inadequacies of a microwave that could melt a ceramic bowl before heating the chilled soup inside it. Sadly, appliances bit back big time again as we tried to use the self-clean function on the oven.

Face masks, gas masks and ear defenders anyone? - and that was just for the neighbors. Inside we were asphyxiated and almost past help as fumes and smoke and alarms went nuts for 4 hours. I exaggerate, of course. We taped up the smoke alarms after 20 minutes, opened all windows and ran for the hills, returning 4 hours later.

And it didn't even clean everything off the oven walls! Bastards.

Macerator madness

I got an earful from Mrs Ed a while back for feeding chicken bones to the waste disposal machine. I admit I was wrong, and should have remembered that the blades to the entry level macerator even struggled to mash up tea leaves. How stupid of me to think the appliances in a $400k home would be fit for purpose. Luckily I got away with the oversight - and lived to fight another day.

With the way gas prices are these days, it seemed a good time to revive a post from earlier last year. I was going to update the numbers, but thought it better to resort to the safe tactic of remembering the "good old days" as a way to cope with current stress levels.

Gas Prices Tumble 14 Cents Consumer Affairs.com

Well, that certainly captures your attention. But I can beat that misleading headline from a recent consumer watchdog news page. After some selective research, I can categorically state:

Gasoline is up $2.50 . The Pisstakers dot com

I like being a pretend journalist. So just like the Consumer Affairs journo who penned his headline, I neglected to qualify my headline with an important fact. What I should have written was "Gasoline is up $2.50 over the past 20 years".

And what he neglected to say was "Gas prices tumble 14 cents in 2 weeks."

Now those headlines would have made more sense in their complete form, but probably not made anyone read on, thinking the end of normality as we know it had just arrived.

Being a serious pisstaker I also found chart of random useless info to back up my statement! But that is getting way too conscientious, so I'll stop right there.




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Mid life crisis test

Guys: If you ever wondered about the signs of a mid-life crisis, wonder no more. Take this mid-life crisis test and feel the truth ooze over you. Courtesy of VW.

Ed scored what appeared to be a healthy 5 out of 23 but this still indicated early signs of deterioration.

I blame it on the US culture, forcing me to say words like "Dude" and "Cool" in everyday conversation.

However there is no excuse for any 40-something anywhere when they consider themselves to be James Bond when getting in or out the car. And when grown men of any age cup their hands in the shape of a cell phone and say, "Call Me." it is all over - bar the breakdown and counseling.

Boob jobs unveiled

Gals: I don't want to sound defensive, but can we lay to rest the notion that boob obsessions are a guy thing! This is my research of myfreeimplants.com

Slightly confused by the concept, I went to the About Page.

The best part is seeing the newly transformed ladies after the surgery when they return to the website to post pictures of the results. You can take pride in knowing that you helped her improve her self esteem and self image!

OK, I think they are right about the positives for the ladies concerned. Good sense. It is also nice for men to help scantily clad strangers augment their breast size. And I agree, before and after shots are indeed a great motivator. Good work website master.

Some gazoombas

But now, check out these gazoombas, and by that I mean the huge laugh that we had looking over some inconsistencies in the site. Some excerpts:



* Is this girl a before or after example? And where can we get a pair of those boots?

* Hi I'm Jennifer, want a shot of my thong! Huh? Is this a before shot so we can see where her new boobs are going to reach? Scary. Or does she need a boob reduction so they fit tastefully inside her skimpy undies? I don't get it, Jennifer, but if it will make you happy, have $50! (Why did that offer sound so wrong?)

*And talking of money, check out the prices - or more accurately the difference in final sums sought by individuals on the front page. There is a lot of choice, of course.

You don't have to stop at boob jobs btw. These guys offer so much more in the field of cosmetic surgery options , assuming your benefactors can stretch this far.


*And still talking money:



What tremendous value for money! Have $1000, madam, I might get at least one good massage out of that investment. (Check out the atrocious level of skimpy blogging entries to see what I mean.) Aah, I misread message for massage. Still, the above statement still applies.

Conclusion

After reading through the details, let's get to the nub of the site message. Instead of donating money to save a kitty, or instead of adopting an orphan in Africa, or giving to the homeless, we are supposed to support a complete stranger's boob job?

Interesting concept indeed, and no doubt everyone will all attain their dream, hopefully minus the Ana Nicole Smith style repercussions. Having said that, I have one big complaint. Where is the section for man boob implants?

There are 315 countries in the world, so where do you start looking for a holiday destination? Norman Roberts gave us some good ideas with nations without armed forces! If you think that is a dumb point of reference, you have never been to Africa or the old East Germany where a good time awaits.



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Everyone needs to earn money to pay the bills. Some want money for nothing, so they go work for the government, but most accept that you have to do something constructive 9 to 5. If you have no particular qualifications, what sort of things can you do to make, say, $20 an hour?

Construction

If you have a strong pair of arms, go work on a construction site. Fresh air, good conversation (Hey Joe dig that fricking hole already!) and the chance to get as fit as a butcher's dog.

Courier

If you have strong legs and a good pair of lungs, why not be a bike courier? City air isn't so fresh, and customers always want their parcels there before you have even picked them up, but it keeps you healthy. And that is why doctors like bike couriers too! In London, they call them "perfect specimens" - the courier pedals like a crazy man, unobservant driver parks up and opens their car door, bang, crash, dead courier and the only damage is a broken neck.

Earn $20 an hour on Ebay

If you have a fast internet connection, a printer and a nimble mind, try and follow Joe Caterasino's advice on how to make $20 an hour on eBay. Sounds kind of convoluted, and I ran out of ideas on what you can sell in bulk for $1 per unit profit, but it must be feasible and surely a decent option for many stay-at-homers. This pisstaker would die in the attempt though, as manual dexterity and packing parcels is about as appealing as eating glass.

Not Yellow pages

Don't try and make money delivering telephone directories. I did. Admittedly it was 20 years ago, but I ended up making $20 in a day, between two of us and had to pay for gas out of that too. Worker profile was the same as for construction worker or courier, in that fitness was essential, but man, the risks involved for a final paycheck worth diddly were unbelievable. "Nice bulldog, good, bulldog, down!" And running from a mad tenant of a condemned property, that was fun. And walking up 400 yard driveways to drop off one directory, fun all the way there, too.

Sex

To be honest, the easiest way to make money is sex. Just go the high class $10,000 a night route, that's sure to put a few bucks in your back pocket. And if you spread it out long enough between jobs, that would also equate to $20 an hour.

Got any other ideas, let us know.





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The rental company are called Rent a wreck. Apparently the van is yours for no money down, zero engine, unlimited mileage, no fuel costs and nothing to pay on termination of the contract.

We are trained by Mother Marketing to be dubious of snappy self-deprecating names for companies. Bodgit and Leggit, are one such business that springs to mind. At first glance you assume they will do a rough job, cut corners and then run like hell when they get their money. However, the double glazing people rightly get a lot of repeat business, because they are good.

By and large, though, most names are inaccurate when you analyse them. After experiencing endless examples of dubious behavior at a certain chain of hardware stores, I refer to them as Screw It and Go. The removal firm we had should be called Hump and Dump, after all the skid marks they left on the walls and the local baker has no right to call himself Master, unless he changes his k to a t.

Got any good name changes?

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No chicken should be forced to suffer a documentary from Pamela Anderson. PeTa have a point of course, highlighting the mal practice of Kentucky Flayed Chicken, but wouldn't they have been better advised to choose a spokes person with credibility? She is about one staged removed from Ronald MacDonald, with all that make-up and a penchant for beef cakes.

Digging through the archives , I found this story about a part of my October honeymoon in France. Have I been married that long already!

We had an invitation to go to Saint-Tropez to see a regatta of 350 boats. It was pretty cool as it included the biggest tall ships in the world - from Penduick 1,2,3 and 5 (4 was sunk in a storm) to a maverick sailor in a 12 foot row boat with a sail that looked like it doubled for a bedsheet. There was also a group of boats called Wally, a high-speed Australian plastic pig. It was hideous and did nothing to dispel the idea that Aussies can be flash but tasteless.

Don't play it again, Sam

The multi-million dollar procession took several hours to arrive and it certainly portrayed how the other half live. Some pretentious guy in white pyjamas was playing a haunting saxophone number aboard a 125-foot schooner. He was no Gerry Rafferty.

Not far behind him were a couple of formula one "cigarette" jet boats. These are capable of lift off if you set them on their tails. When they revved up they instantly drowned out all ambient noise, which was much appreciated by those of us that didn't appreciate the saxophone. The downside was the vibration that was powerful enough to jigger your bones. No fun for those still digesting their lobster lunches.

The rich scene

Talking of rumbling tummies, the dockside was lined with loads of over-weight, 60-something botox-ed playboys accompanied by their young tanned dolly birds. Do they have no shame, or is it, no brains? I had to question what was lodged between their ears, when for some reason, the land-lubber jet setters waved back at the equally privileged twats standing on their poop decks grinning and waving shorewards.

There must be some appeal in being a self-appointed king of the French seaside resort. I can't see it appeal myself, so they are welcome to their piece of paradise. Having said that, I would be happy to be part of the community populated by guys in 12-foot bath tubs with a sail. First one to the bar wins a beer and a bag of chips.

Watching Dr Phil's House of Hatred a few months back made us feel like we were witnessing a modern day satire of the Rise and fall of the Roman Empire. We thought it was worth doing this re-run.

He was fat

Picture one of those fat grotesque lumps slumbering on their reinforced beds between doughnut feasts. You know, those 700lb whales, and 1000lb frankensteins of the food chain, the symbol of all that is human weakness. The Dr Phil guest was a prime example of the obesity on the rampage in the Western worldwide. He was there to solve his issues. After viewing his tears and lazy boy approach, I suggest that lazy minds lie at the root of this out-of-control weighty issue. Get your head in gear and the pounds will fall away.

The Japanese are now getting fat

The Japanese once had the healthiest diet in the world. The American Indians were quite fit as well, in their day. There was also a time when the average American immigrant weighed the same as his Polish or German ancestor languishing back home in misery. And according to a major 1990's survey, even though the British were leaner in the second world war than in modern times, they had in fact become considerably more healthy overall. None of this applies any more!

No red herrings here, please!

Please don't get diverted by the high and mighty fat lobby claiming the half-ton lardies on Dr Phil are predisposed to enormity. The hell they are. Just count the calories and the lack of will to say no! 12000 calories a day and no exercise - therein lies the reason for vast girths and umpteen rolls of fat hanging by the hundred weight over underused genitals.

A beached whale

The huge lad featured on Doctor Phil was consuming 12000 calories per day. If you have no concept of what that means in real money, the average trim and active male tucks away 2500 calories on a good day and stays at a stable weight.

Going up a notch or two, imagine Sir Ranulph Fiennes, that crazy polar explorer. He is a big athletic guy, and in the height of his efforts to drag a huge sled across snowy Antarctic wastelands, he was tucking into 5000 calories of food per day. Despite that huge food intake, he came home looking skeletal! And here we have a dormant inactive supine dollop munching his way through 2 and a half times more food than the loony explorer, and he says it is his metabolism. Come on, do the math!

Unhealthy body, unhealthy mind

Of course, these jabbas wallow on the extreme tip of the flabby iceberg, but they are illustrative of a growing global mindset among millions of inactive people who do neither the math nor the right thing. They don't say, "No, I have had enough today, mother, put that 12-pack of jam rolly poly puddings on hold." Instead they feign surprise at why they can't get into the suit they were married in - a week earlier!

Mega consumers of all things fattening are shocked to their roots that they can no longer see their dicks. Women are mortified that their asses are bigger than their huge bellies. And the big eaters are amazed that the fire service has to take a wall down and winch them from their beds so they can go for a piss. And what do they do in their stupor? They keep on eating.

SAPiens eateritus

These poor people are a mess because of their mind, not because of a "predisposition to putting on weight". I mean poor in the emotional sense, not the financial sense. Dr Phil tries hard to show lower income fatties that it is cheaper to eat healthily rather than sloppily. A lettuce and tomato salad washed down with water is far cheaper and healthier than a pack of doritos and a gallon of coke. The problem is, though, watery salad isn't very comforting, whereas 2000 calories of junk makes depressed people (both rich and poor) feel good - for a few minutes.

It's the economy, stupid

The pace of life and growing pressure to maintain the economy on an upward curve lies at the root of obesity, I believe. It is a pattern, a seductive pattern that at the top end of the scale and at the bottom, the system is taking no prisoners with fat overload.

For example, when you overextend yourself financially, you are required to overwork and/or over-stress, to pay bills and keep up or get ahead. Under pressure, people are prone to not do the right thing. The first or easiest thing to neglect is yourself! An early casualty is the diet. Pile on the pounds.

Then there are less well-off folks who have fallen behind the rat race pace and have given up. They have no hope, apart from solace in doritos and coke. That is the excuse, whether you buy it as a justifiable one is up for debate. I am just saying, it looks like a pattern.

Most of us have the choice to be fit

The gargantuan folks waddling around started life slim and potentially active. All that fresh air and exercise is there on their doorstep for the taking - free to rich and poor alike. In addition to open spaces, the better-off have access to space-age facilities, and opportunities aplenty to get fit. In theory there is no reason for any of us to get down and slothful. No justification for not taking the world by the lapels and giving it a good healthy shake. Hell, we can detox, de-MacDonald, de-caffenate everything now. But the lifestyle gets in the way and the weight piles on and health care goes up.

And this fat ass pattern is being repeated all over the world.

Flying fish tonight

The Japs were big on fish, now they are turning to chips, and their diet is turning to shit. You can imagine the last 30 years of affluence has been like a closely matched wrestling match between the old guard, and the new. (Samurai v Big mama san). Fish and rice v fish and chips. The old regime of health has finally given way to the new, and not surprisingly, the waistlines of weaker minded and driven Japanese are burgeoning accordingly.

Molly coddle and chips

The Brits are about 5 years behind the US, like an obedient bitch rolling over for its master, willing to give in whenever the master feels like it. MacDonalds got popular in the UK when something like the 5 billionth burger had been sold in the US. And now Blair's boys have been studying kids in America, and he has blanched at the findings. He compared them to the waistlines in the UK today - and found he already had a few hundred thousand fat gits on his own doorstep.

Society there has been going to pot ever since Thatcher set Tony Blair's wheels in motion in the 80's, so the minds of Brits have been getting weaker and weaker over time. The invasion of the fatty snackers is on its way.

No reservations here

And of course there are no fit American Indians any more. The few remaining braves are gambling magnates with huge bellies and triple burger chins. Like Guam islanders whose diet increased to 5000 calories a day, for "no apparent reason", the same pattern is there for all to see. Times get good, then those good times become normal for a few and then life gets steadily harder and harder for the masses dragged into the race to sustain the good times. People start to lose focus under pressure and eat and eat and eat that crap processed food that has become a symbol of good times.

Right, it is time for breakfast. Care to subscribe to our blog? it is free and suitable for dummies!.

Priceless.com is a window on the world of Mastercard. One of the features of the geo-tagging based site is the ability to produce a Google map from a search item. As an example, input "Cupertino" and a map of Cupertino appears. I tried Santa's grotto and hell and saw some bizarre results.





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Trying to be chic or pretentious or damn right confusing - that is the ultimate mission of the marketers of Glacéau, Hâagen Dazs, and Mötorhead. Take a banal product, (water) plant a jarring idea about it in the mind of the consumer, (ie a dumb ass misplaced and gramatically incorrect accent) and wait for the product name to stick in the universal mindset.

Glacéau deconstructed

For anyone who cares about French, Glacé means iced in that language of sickly romantics, and eau means agua, wasser, water, but combined in that order it is back-to-front misspelt French that means almost nothing. But while the name, Glacéaú means almost nothing to French speakers, it has lots of significance to the bottom line of the US company that earns millions from the name.

More than just an umlaut

How depressing to fall into the marketers' trap so easily and spend time talking about colored vitamin water. Much more interesting to discuss made up ice-cream Häagen Dazs or heavy rockers Mötorhead with an umlaut. Go figure!

The ice-ceam guys with a made-up name are now in cahoots with Nestlé, the company with a real genuine accennt.

Once the world's loudest live band, and fronted by an ex Hells Angel, Lemmy, who would have thought Motorhead needed to be cute with a German accent.

But it worked for them, so Mótley Crüe went one umlaut better. Perlease. The next thing is Britney will try to break all the rules and become Brítnéy, the only Hispanic entity on earth with two accents in her name!

The biggest con out there is bottled water. Unless you live in Chernobyl or the Dead Sea, the water coming out your taps in the Western world is good enough. But if you do feel the need to succumb to advertising, you could do worse than pick up a bottle of Glacéau. Drink and stay hydrated, and at least have a titter at the story on the label of every bottle.

We tried to sell our house just as the market slowed. Despite no sale, a realtor made me laugh with this true story.

Imagine an East coast realtor meets with a Venezuelan guy, his wife and her mother to show them some properties. After the first showing, to be helpful, he takes the three Latin Americans in his car, under the impression he is dropping them all off in town so the guy can attend a job interview. Afterwards, they will all meet up again and continue viewing homes. Wrong!

The realtor pulls up outside the address downtown and the guy says he will be an hour. The realtor says he will return to pick them all up and continue as planned. Before the husband can even step out the car, his wife has jumped out and screeches through the window that she is going shopping and will be back in an hour. Off she runs leaving mom in the back and the husband lost for words.

In order to keep a potential sale alive, there is nothing for it but to let him go for his interview and take a doddery 85 year-old Señora with two words of English back to the realtor office for a coffee and a quiet sit down in a back office.

Who says nobody has a heart in that business? And who can imagine the atmosphere when it came to meeting up again with the wife and husband?

"Here, Mrs So-and-So, I brought your mother back. She says you're quite the bitch!"



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According to Digital Journal... Mr. Bruni comes to us from Rome where he was not the local “expert” on Italian cuisine; he wrote about politics. In fact, there hasn’t been a real food critic with food background (except perhaps Amanda Hesser) at the New York Times since Ruth Reichl

This seems quite a valid a grievance by a restauranteur who didn't approve of many reviews about his business, but, do the credentials of "experts" really matter? Looking at the UK for clues, the evidence suggests, not!

Shuffle out the dead wood

So many times, Governments have re-shuffles when adulterous Ministers for Transport suddenly head the Ministry for Food. Out of sight out of mind, the politicos learn on the job and screw up until they get it right. Nobody seems to mind too much.

London Dome disaster

The same policy of mis-match was evident when the UK Government employed a French guy to turn around the London Millennium Dome disaster. Millions over budget, thousands under daily visitor numbers, and constantly under the press spotlight, the Brits needed help. Pierre somebody-or-other had cut his teeth reviving some disastrous Mickey Mouse funfair in Paris - DisneyWorld Paris! Good enough for the French, he was flown in to save UK credibility in the world of major projects. Oops.

He enthusiastically took his expertise in the marketing of cartoon characters and doughnuts and applied it to a dead duck prestigious mickey mouse idea in the London docklands. Unfortunately, no amount of fanfare could right the wrongs of years of mismanagement, and ultimately the analysts had to accept that the Dome failure was nothing to do with Pierre's expert failings. Would even a Dome expert have fallen flat on his face? Probably, although we will never know.

Italian food critics are ten a penny

But what we do know about the right person for the job in the case of food critics is that everybody knows something about eating. And in the case of Italian food critics, find me a writer who has never consumed spaghetti or pizza, and that would be a story.

After waking up on the sofa with the TV blaring out info-mercials, I sat through a passionate paid advert for The World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets. Listening to the wide-eyed presenter, I thought Mankind's greatest unsung heroic researchers had found the secrets to a perpetual and happy, pain-free life. Right! Amazon reader reviews paint a less glowing perspective on the book.

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We have an on-line shopping section where we find the fun in various options available. In the Amazon collection we had keywords: funny and humor. Paul McKenna's slimming book was not that funny until I read the last line of the review.

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For the 95% of visitors who don't know him, Jeremy Clarkson is the god of British car journalism. So when we dabbled with the Eat My Hamster cartoon captioning, there was nothing for it but to re-word his ecstasy when he was at the wheel of a Dodge Viper ...

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This captured the eye back in October. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more whacky in America, the engineers pushed the boat out, literally, with this Tampa house relocation.
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When life just sucks there is escape at hand with the new drug of choice for upwardly mobile folks.

At $300 a pop, however, many needy folk on lower incomes have been known to leave the pharmacy and resort to the old-fashioned method of stress relief: talking to friends, going for walks, asking grandma to look after the kids.


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When we say wierd, we aren't talking socks that come in packs of 10, and you get one of them; nor ties that will gather dust in a cupboard only to be worn when the person who gave it you dies. Forget, handkerchieves in horrible plastic boxes, monogrammed with someone else's initials; and no, we aren't going down the road of scarves ...