I lived in China for about 9 months in 2003. Before I went, I was familiar with chopsticks. I knew how to use them and I appreciated their novelty. I got compliments from the locals. Ni hui yong kuaizi! (You can use chopsticks!)
But I firmly believed that chopsticks were a rudimentary way to eat food. Chopsticks, I would have told you, were to cutlery as the horse drawn cart is to the car. I thought the Chinese just hadn’t invented the knife and fork.
When I have a little time on my hands, I play Scrabble. I do not play in real life, because my insistence on the status of words like taeniae, st, and yin makes me unpleasant to normal people.
Because it’s never too soon to have a self-indulgent retrospective.
From the WordPress statistics page. Hits per article, from most-read, to mostly ignored…
About _____________________________________112
Coffee Safari ________________________________77
Inglourious Basterds – a review ____________________72
Mt Hotham – a book review _______________________62
Travel Disasters – the rat. _________________________62 **
In which your correspondent is horrified ______________55
Fairtrade _____________________________________52
Accents eh, bro? ________________________________51
Travel disasters ________________________________50
Costco – A review _______________________________49
Keeping a lid on it? _____________________________47
Intelligent delivery? ____________________________45
Something-something and over it _________________44
Garbledy-gook _______________________________41
Are we dense? ________________________________38
The Best of all Time ___________________________37
America’s guns _______________________________35
A new multi-part series _________________________35
Berkeley – A good place to cycle ___________________33
Regrets, I’ve had a few _________________________32
lolcats: threat or menace? _______________________31 ^
Snowclones _________________________________30
Hello, Aliens! ________________________________30
Unsafe is Safe? _______________________________30
Lost in Translation ____________________________30
Pareidolia on toast ____________________________29
Dumbocracy ________________________________27
This train is about to depart… ____________________26
Godwin Grech and political spin __________________24
Because Food Miles Don’t Go Far Enough. ___________23
A New Kind of Humility ________________________21
Do copulating puppets shock? ____________________21
With great power comes great responsibility__________21
How about this weather, eh! _____________________20
Slumdog Millionaire: A Review Overview ____________19
Verbing weirds language. ________________ ______18
On Naivety _________________________________17
Don’t like the law? Leave._______________________17
Futurology __________________________________17
Vigilantes __________________________________14
Out for the count______________________________14
Twitter! Huh! What is it good for? _________________10
More Micronations! ___________________________8#
Fancy food __________________________________7
The RACV and the Aston Martin___________________7*
bikesnobnyc _________________________________2
** nb. Some readers may not have read the full 1900 words.
^ Most overrated – this one inspired a phone call from an unnamed reader who advised me ‘Be less…average!’
# Unfairly ignored in my humble opinion.
* Removed due to overwhelming popular demand!
Absolutely nothing.
I’m on Twitter. twitter.com/jasemurphy. Why?
Because I bought the hype.
Continue reading Twitter! Huh! What is it good for?
Talking about the weather never grows old. In fact, like a fine wine, it improves with age. You never see a pair of five-year-old kids standing by the monkey bars going:
‘Maaate, how about this rain?’
I’ve just discovered this blog. http://www.bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com
It’s been running for a couple of years and I’ve delved deep into the archives.
It is so well written it makes me want to:
a) read more!
b) cry
c) try harder.
read it today.
Inglourious Basterds hinges on ‘good and evil’, and blithely depicts evil actions as good. Oh, btw, I may ruin this movie for you. Sorry. ;)
Why are some accents funny?
The Australians find the Irish accent hilarious. Half of Ireland holds down steady jobs doing comedy here. But I bet the Scots don’t laugh at them. I’m told the Americans cack themselves at the Canadians. ‘Aboot aboot!’ Similarly, I fear the amusement is not mutual.
I just spent a couple of weeks spinning comedy gold out of the most minor differences in pronunciation, in New Zealand.
Bringing big- box retailing to Melbourne’s thriving Docklands precinct is the Costco Wholesale Corporation, the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world, based on sales volume!
Imagine If Kmart, Bunnings, and the Melbourne Cricket Club had a baby. Continue reading Costco – A review
300 million free citizens can’t be wrong. Right? Continue reading America’s guns
Rather than cram bicycle lanes onto main thoroughfares and roads that are a little too narrow, the Berkeley Council has taken another approach. Continue reading Berkeley – A good place to cycle
Hello readers, during the next few weeks, whilst my co-blogger takes a well-earned break from trice daily postings, I will take the reins of the good ship Thomas the Think Engine.
With that, I am announcing a new multi-part series called ‘What’s wacky about the USA’. Hallmarks of this new series will include: mixed metaphors, lots of commas, lots of hyphens, lots of spelling mistakes, fewer posts and veiled criticisms of the greatest country on earth. I hope you enjoy the reading…
Thus, the first topic is Incompetence: Continue reading A new multi-part series
In 2007, I was working for the Australian Government. In May I got sent to Nauru to carry papers and fill a chair at an important meeting.
“Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
So it is with travel.
All lovely trips feature delectable meals, beautiful sunsets, friendly guides and surprisingly well-appointed accommodation.
Trips people like to hear about might feature explosive diarrhea, incarceration by border guards, hungry bed bugs, bus drivers on mezcal, stolen luggage, muggings at syringe point, water landings, leaky canoes, brutal casino security guards, giant squid attacks, or some variation on this endlessly adaptable theme.
I ordered my copy of Mt Hotham on the internet. Prime book-reading season was in full-swing, and I eagerly anticipated the time when I was finally able to open the cover. I had read a short-story version many years ago, and I knew this work was likely to be a pre-eminent example of its genre.
I heard the people from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence on the radio this morning. It’s not a German techno outfit. It’s a real American scientific research centre looking for intelligent life in the universe. It’s exciting. I can’t imagine the hoo-hah if they found something. It might even push Masterchef below the fold.
There could be life in the universe, for sure. But they’re dreaming if they think it will communicate with us. A few reasons: Continue reading Hello, Aliens!
Pick someone who rates their grammar skills, and try saying this: “Your rampant pedantry is impacting me negatively.”
Watch: First their faces grow red. They sputter. Flecks of spit gather like soap scum in the corner of their mouths. Hands shake and reach for their receding hairlines. They suppress the urge to correct. But not for long. “IMPACT is a noun! You can’t ‘impact’ something! It’s WRONG! WRONG!!!”
Then try saying this “Um, chillax dude. Grammar? Like, whatevs.” Boom. Splatter. You have just made a human being explode.
Wanna see how fancy your Dominos pizza can look?
Check out this bizarre food reconstruction website! http://www.fancyfastfood.com
I was passing my lunchtime in a bookshop near my former office when I found a book with the following title: ‘30-Something and Over It’.
I’m not 30-something, but this book was speaking to me. (Maybe it’s because I have been reading at or above my age-level since that remedial class.) I took the book down and began. From page one I felt recognition.
I stood there, a non-fiction display shielding me from the bookstore staff’s cold stares, and read about the author’s battle with demotivation. She told the story of climbing the corporate ladder until one day she woke up with no desire to reach for the next rung. She lacked the desire to even cling to her rung. She lacked the desire to get out of bed. Continue reading Something-something and over it
You know that feeling where you’re angry at yourself? I had that today. About a 10-minute period where I was the worst, dumbest guy I could think of.
Continue reading Regrets, I’ve had a few
Thomas the Think Engine 