dagmaraka wrote:these are from the hairmixer site - i got angelina jolie, drew barrymore, Hillary, Pink...and, my most favorite, Catherine Zeta Jones. Played around for quite awhile...with friends' photos too.
OK, thats kind of... freaky
Luckily you also snuck in one with just you as yourself...:
Great, ahhhhh, ahem, uhhhhh ~ tongue
Brits can be so... prim. At least the ones in the traditional press. In a charming way
Quote:The image, by photographer Michel Comte, shows a younger Miss Bruni facing the camera wearing no more than a thoughtful expression, her hands crossed at waist height to cover her modesty.
Beeeeeerrrrr........ ah! I love beer. I am drinking my first beers since last weekend. I have been sick and tired for two-three weeks and have had very little beer. I have lost a couple pounds, too, but I miss the bubbly brew too much to give it up.
Mmmmmmmmm
I smiled when I learned of this thread:
a two-hour beach adventure with the fella and the dogs
the first one of the season post-snow
we're all smiling
We went to feed the kitties this afternoon.
A couple of blocks down the street from our little square, there's an old bathhouse. Used to be quite grand. It was shuttered in 1989, half-demolished at some point in time, and ever since has been in the hands of vandals and weather. It's a pretty cool building. On the front, some windows are bricked up, but you can still see the elegant letters and lines of the building, and a severely weather-beaten statue. Going around the back, it's like some gritty dystopian sci-fi movie, as the exposed structure, half-demolished, juts out, concrete blocks strung together by iron drooping down like a weeping willow.
Thats where the cats live.
There's a dozen or so, at least. They are small, more like large kittens, and they come in stripes or orange or orange with stripes or black with a little white hair under the chin. They're curious and dexterously jump around and crawl from behind or underneath rocks and floors and random garbage. They're also very scared, or let's say shy. But they must get as much help as trouble, as their main grounds are scattered with plastic bowls that were left there with leftovers, or have water in them.
Anastasia had bought chicken livers, the other day. By accident. We hate chicken livers. So we were going to bring them to the kittens. But come this weekend day, the chicken livers were off. But we did have a chicken breast still. So she cut that up in pieces instead and off we went.
Three cats were waiting. Two more peered from up on the "first floor". Scattered when we approached. Anastasia carefully distributed the pieces in the different bowls. Then we waited, at a careful distance. One of the tiger striped ones was boldest. Came venturing out, then strolled past again, came back. Took a long time to get to the meat. By then, other eyes had appeared, one little white face peeking out from underneath a big roll of tarp or something. Big orange cat came from all across the parking lot. They'd all stayed away, but once the bold one seemed to be about to eat it all, down they came. Jumpy, whenever we ruffled, they would bounce away, but if we stood still, they ate happily.
One cat was late, poor thing. He was left just sniffing another cat's face and going, wait a minute, there was chicken? Why nobody told me? After they were all done, they took turns looking down at us from atop one pile of rubble and using their pleading face. But it was gone.
It was big trash day today. Or, this weekend, maybe, cause the mounds of garbage have been out for two days now. Which means an influx of new folk in the neighbourhood. Cause that ****'s dealt with in a systematic way.
From early in the morning, it's not just little old ladies and gents navigating the waste. The Roma come in, and other people from outer districts, or who knows where. They go through the trash and take anything out that could be of use in any possible way.
I've gotten my share of furniture from the street too, in Holland. But here, either the pros already took everything of remote value to me before I even notice it's trash day, or Hungarians, not half as prosperous, really use things up. They dont throw the kind of stuff out that Dutch people casually discard.
And yet, it's a busy beehive. Individuals picking up a box or a toy or a stool. But also vans and cars with trailers, and groups of young men hauling things up on there. We saw an old Lada pass by, with an improbable number of broken fridges tied up on the roof. (Yesterday, Anastasia passed by a man who was being furiously hooted at as he was blocking the road, after a big door he'd shoved into his trunk had slid out across the street.)
Stuff gets heated sometimes: there's veritable turf wars. You dont wanna dig through a pile that's already 'taken'. Others are just using the stuff for the occasion, like the homeless guy who'd fallen asleep in a discarded, dirty but comfortable lazy chair.
But what struck us, on our way to the kitties and walking round afterwards, was something else. There was this small pile of stuff, and amongst it were seven broken umbrellas. Who leaves seven broken umbrellas out? Who collects them in the first place? Two houses down, there's five broken TVs. A little bit round the block, there's whole little towers of wooden seats of chairs. Must have been a school?, Anastasia speculates. We joke: is there some specific rule, like, the city assigns each house specific dates? Like: #23: on the February trash day, you can only discard chairs! And in March, only lamp covers! Maybe?
We found stuff ourselves too. Staz found a couple of Hungarian schoolbooks on literature, standard issue serial stuff. One still had a small cheat sheet in it. There was one on philosophy too: from Plato to Hegel, but three of the five parts of the book focused on "the cornerstones of Marxist philosophy". Marx, Engels, Lenin. I found photos. And postcards. Boring postcards - I mean, several of them could be straight from the (brilliant) "Boring postcards" books!
The photos were intriguing. Lajos D. was once a hipster, maybe in the 60s, casually posing with fellow intellectual friends by the Danube in 1966. Then he became something of an apparatchik. Even drinking in some chalet, he kept his tie and jacket on, and heavy black glasses. We found a postcard from his wife, from the Balaton lake, where many resorts are: she was at a HSWP (Hungarian Socialist Workers Party) holiday home. "The X is my room!," she wrote and indeed, there was an X on one of the non-descript 1970s balconies. "I'm being a good girl(friend), my sweet, and I hope you're being good too!" Unexpected undertones of repressed raunchiness from solidly stodgy settings.
All of that spilled out on the pavement, alongside lots of technical papers and forms. A postcard from Canada. A photo with a granddaughter. How come it's all out here now? Was he evicted? Did he die alone?
That was small fry compared to the photos and postcards amidst mounds of discarded wood, boxes, broken cupboards in front of a house close to the Small Boulevard. Photos of art. Photos from the TV, incredulously eighties. A lovely, happy woman holding a baby. The same woman, a few years younger, naked from the waist up. An official meeting of some kind. Several times an older middle-aged guy, the I person, I suppose. At some art expo or the like. And a series of photos of various young women in various states of undress.
We ambled around some more, had lunch/dinner in a cosy pub I didnt know, had coffee somewhere too. Found out there was a film festival, and tonight a documentary was playing about Joy Division. So we went of course, in Toldi. It had lots of really cool original footage from back then, also from Manchester in those days. Very gritty. But cool. And sometimes hilarious, original TV footage from then, presenters. Art work was done really well too. And the band members, interviewed, pulled you into the story that unfolded into a drama. Just too many other talking heads going on too long in these standard-type "music documentary" bits about how fantastic the band was, how unique the time, lots of intellectual bull ****.
But anyway, powerful doc. Outside, we met my colleague and her husband - he's English, and apparently a Joy Division fan. We walked home, and mentioned umbrellas, and TVs. She put us right. It's even more systematic than we thought, see. The Gypsies - and the other collectors - they organise. They sort the stuff they find already on the street, in different places. That way the guys with the vans and trailers (or sometimes carrier bicycles) can come for their stuff -- for the stuff that they sell on, specifically. The guy who collects broken TVs for example, takes out any bits still usable - nothing goes unrecycled for at least one more turn. The guy who picks up broken umbrellas. The guy who picks up broken umbrellas?
Toodle - oh lay
Any umbrellas, any umbrellas
To mend today?
Bring your parasol, it may be small. It may be big
He will fix them all on what you call a thing-a-ma-jig
Pitter patter patter! Pitter patter patter!
It looks like rain.
Let it pitter patter. Let it pitter patter.
Who cares for rain?
He'll mend your umbrellas, then go on his way
Singing toodle luma luma. Toodle luma luma.
Any umbrellas to mend today.
When there's a lull
And things are dull
He'll sharpen knives for all the wives
In the neighborhood
And he's very good.
He'll darn a sock
Or fix a clock
An apple cart
A broken heart --
He'll mend anything but he'd much rather sing -
Toodle - luma luma
Toodle - luma luma
Toodle-oh-lay
Any umbrellas - any umbrellas
To mend today?
He'll mend your umbrella
Then go on his way singing
Toodle luma luma
Toodle luma luma
BillW wrote:Enter the word of 'Kopi Luwak' in major search engine like Yahoo & Google, you'll find most of online store will sell Kopi Luwak from $175 to $450 / lbs. !!
You have got a money maker
yours is preground
Gives "eat ****" a whole new meaning....
nimh wrote:It was big trash day today. Or, this weekend, maybe, cause the mounds of garbage have been out for two days now. Which means an influx of new folk in the neighbourhood. Cause that ****'s dealt with in a systematic way.
From early in the morning, it's not just little old ladies and gents navigating the waste. The Roma come in, and other people from outer districts, or who knows where. They go through the trash and take anything out that could be of use in any possible way.
I've gotten my share of furniture from the street too, in Holland. But here, either the pros already took everything of remote value to me before I even notice it's trash day, or Hungarians, not half as prosperous, really use things up. They dont throw the kind of stuff out that Dutch people casually discard.
And yet, it's a busy beehive. Individuals picking up a box or a toy or a stool. But also vans and cars with trailers, and groups of young men hauling things up on there. We saw an old Lada pass by, with an improbable number of broken fridges tied up on the roof. (Yesterday, Anastasia passed by a man who was being furiously hooted at as he was blocking the road, after a big door he'd shoved into his trunk had slid out across the street.)
Stuff gets heated sometimes: there's veritable turf wars. You dont wanna dig through a pile that's already 'taken'. Others are just using the stuff for the occasion, like the homeless guy who'd fallen asleep in a discarded, dirty but comfortable lazy chair.
But what struck us, on our way to the kitties and walking round afterwards, was something else. There was this small pile of stuff, and amongst it were seven broken umbrellas. Who leaves seven broken umbrellas out? Who collects them in the first place? Two houses down, there's five broken TVs. A little bit round the block, there's whole little towers of wooden seats of chairs. Must have been a school?, Anastasia speculates. We joke: is there some specific rule, like, the city assigns each house specific dates? Like: #23: on the February trash day, you can only discard chairs! And in March, only lamp covers! Maybe?
We found stuff ourselves too. Staz found a couple of Hungarian schoolbooks on literature, standard issue serial stuff. One still had a small cheat sheet in it. There was one on philosophy too: from Plato to Hegel, but three of the five parts of the book focused on "the cornerstones of Marxist philosophy". Marx, Engels, Lenin. I found photos. And postcards. Boring postcards - I mean, several of them could be straight from the (brilliant) "Boring postcards" books!
The photos were intriguing. Lajos D. was once a hipster, maybe in the 60s, casually posing with fellow intellectual friends by the Danube in 1966. Then he became something of an apparatchik. Even drinking in some chalet, he kept his tie and jacket on, and heavy black glasses. We found a postcard from his wife, from the Balaton lake, where many resorts are: she was at a HSWP (Hungarian Socialist Workers Party) holiday home. "The X is my room!," she wrote and indeed, there was an X on one of the non-descript 1970s balconies. "I'm being a good girl(friend), my sweet, and I hope you're being good too!" Unexpected undertones of repressed raunchiness from solidly stodgy settings.
All of that spilled out on the pavement, alongside lots of technical papers and forms. A postcard from Canada. A photo with a granddaughter. How come it's all out here now? Was he evicted? Did he die alone?
That was small fry compared to the photos and postcards amidst mounds of discarded wood, boxes, broken cupboards in front of a house close to the Small Boulevard. Photos of art. Photos from the TV, incredulously eighties. A lovely, happy woman holding a baby. The same woman, a few years younger, naked from the waist up. An official meeting of some kind. Several times an older middle-aged guy, the I person, I suppose. At some art expo or the like. And a series of photos of various young women in various states of undress.
We ambled around some more, had lunch/dinner in a cosy pub I didnt know, had coffee somewhere too. Found out there was a film festival, and tonight a documentary was playing about Joy Division. So we went of course, in Toldi. It had lots of really cool original footage from back then, also from Manchester in those days. Very gritty. But cool. And sometimes hilarious, original TV footage from then, presenters. Art work was done really well too. And the band members, interviewed, pulled you into the story that unfolded into a drama. Just too many other talking heads going on too long in these standard-type "music documentary" bits about how fantastic the band was, how unique the time, lots of intellectual bull ****.
But anyway, powerful doc. Outside, we met my colleague and her husband - he's English, and apparently a Joy Division fan. We walked home, and mentioned umbrellas, and TVs. She put us right. It's even more systematic than we thought, see. The Gypsies - and the other collectors - they organise. They sort the stuff they find already on the street, in different places. That way the guys with the vans and trailers (or sometimes carrier bicycles) can come for their stuff -- for the stuff that they sell on, specifically. The guy who collects broken TVs for example, takes out any bits still usable - nothing goes unrecycled for at least one more turn. The guy who picks up broken umbrellas. The guy who picks up broken umbrellas?
Toodle - oh lay
Any umbrellas, any umbrellas
To mend today?
Bring your parasol, it may be small. It may be big
He will fix them all on what you call a thing-a-ma-jig
Pitter patter patter! Pitter patter patter!
It looks like rain.
Let it pitter patter. Let it pitter patter.
Who cares for rain?
He'll mend your umbrellas, then go on his way
Singing toodle luma luma. Toodle luma luma.
Any umbrellas to mend today.
When there's a lull
And things are dull
He'll sharpen knives for all the wives
In the neighborhood
And he's very good.
He'll darn a sock
Or fix a clock
An apple cart
A broken heart --
He'll mend anything but he'd much rather sing -
Toodle - luma luma
Toodle - luma luma
Toodle-oh-lay
Any umbrellas - any umbrellas
To mend today?
He'll mend your umbrella
Then go on his way singing
Toodle luma luma
Toodle luma luma
I've NEVER seen whoever takes the rubbish here.....
I don't know if it's a bunch of folk, or one very well-organised person/team.
All I know, is that when I put out hard rubbish, 99% of it is gone the next morning, before the council get to it. And I never hear/see anything.
But they're picky here.....old electrical stuff, like old music or video/DVD players...gets left.
Your place sounds like real street theatre!
Watching my 75 yr old mum trying to play Wii sports
dlowan wrote:Your place sounds like real street theatre!
It's very colourful sometimes
Playing Trivial pursuits with the children
It made me smile to see that Black Tulip had posted in "What Made You Smile Today" (before I even read it -- games with kids are certainly smile-inducing. Played Uno with the kiddo last night, she won the third game [after losing the first two] and was on cloud 9.)
The Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism were announced today. The Washington Post cleaned up, winning something like 6 or 7 for mostly very serious reporting. But one of their writers won one for a feature story he did. I think his name is Weingarten (but don't trust my spelling on that).
He was reflecting on the musicians we run into on the streets, subway stations or underground walkways leading to the security checks at airports.
He recruited Joshua Bell, arguably (or not) one of the finest violinists around today, to do a 45 minute performance in a subway station in D.C. during morning rush-hour. Mr Bell, being the consumate artist he is, poured his heart and soul into the effort.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people walked by, but only 7 stopped for longer than a minute. One man, who later said he had once been a frustrated violinist, stayed for 7 minutes and ended up throwing 5 bucks into Mr Bell's tin-cup. He collected $32 in total, and the beefed up crowd control the Post and the subway people had planned turned out to be unneeded.
The article evidently avoided taking a cheap shot suggesting we are all unsophisticated boobs. Rather, we are all so very, very busy.
A unicyclist just rode past my house. And, no, he was not wearing a clown costume.
"floppy palace" instead of floating palace in a text read by a 2nd grader. Struck me as very funny at the time.
Watching my son and daughter lick a spoon after making sticky toffee pudding!
