The President's Percentage.

Ok this is going to be a typical Bitsnbob mess - mainly because it starts with a tin of cat food in France and ends with President Obama in America.

Or maybe the other way round?

Do I mean cat food in America and?… no I don’t.

You see - on the whole I try not to be influenced by advertising and marketing ploys, I figure that if someone needs to tell me that I need something then I don’t need it.

I’m a big boy; I know when I need something.

Yet….

You know that film Star Wars?

I thought the light sabres were pretty cool.

I thought being a Jedi Knight was pretty cool too.

So in the supermarket, just the other day, when I found myself wandering along the cereal aisle I picked up my usual packet of muesli and then thought – hey, Emma is stopping over for the weekend I’d better get some cereal that teenagers will eat.

Hmmmmmm.

Big choice.

Then I saw it - Cocopoppy stuff.

With…

A free Jedi Knight, Star Wars endorsed, Light Sabre t-spoon !!!! (plastic)

It looks totally awesome on the packet; I had to resist ripping it open there and then.

Apparently there are four different ones to collect, and you bet I will, my consumption of Cocopops is about to escalate inter galactical(l)y – there is a pink one, a green one, a… hang on … I need the packet…….

A green Yoda spoon, a red Darth Maul spoon, a yellow/orange Anakin Skywalker spoon and a blue R2-D2 one!

This is brilliant!

I hope it’s the, er, oh wow what a choice!

I’m going to open it; I can’t wait for someone to want to eat this crap…

Damm , it’s the red villain – I really wanted an orange/yellow R2-D2, which of course isn’t on offer.

And that’s why I hate advertising.

Where is the cat food in all this?

Well, if you turn right at the end of the cereal aisle, pass the yoghurts and the soap powder and head to the far corner you’ll come to the cat department.

It’s right next to the birdseed.

I picked up a jumbo bag of seed for wild winged visitors.

Incidentally, I’m having a problem with the birds at the moment – and it might be this brand of seed.

I have a suspended bird feeder thingy, which you can fill up with seed and I suspended it because I have four cats.

The birds come, the cats drool but they can’t reach them

Hey- can’t – I just wrote can’t and I want to get onto President Obama, is this the opportunity?

Do you remember his victory speech in Chicago?

Of course you can.

Well…, ok, I’d better finish the bit about the birds first.

Oh, forget it, it’s not essential – having a link, or segue into President Obama is much more important.

Because on the shelves of stuff for felines there was a boxed set of cat food – Felix – with a catchy slogan on the packaging.

Yes we cat!

I was tempted.

Then I saw that the box also contained a free plastic cat toy!

Ok, not a Light Sabre-Toothed Toy (sabre-tooth tiger – gettit?) but Jedi can’t be choosers.

So I got it.

I wonder if President Obama gets a commission?

A purrcentage?

A Multistory Carp-park.

The other day i posted an erratum.

Then, i read this - and saw that there was a typing mistake - "car park" was written as "carp park".

I should erratum the erratum.

But you know waht?

Ooops, sorry, that's meant to be What!?

I like it!

AND, it's my birthday (i've decided to prolong it).

So i'm leaving it unerrated.

A(n) (oldernative) Thought of The Day

How ‘y’er feeling?

Older, and you?

Alter.

Alter?

Older ego! Alter ego, older/alter gettit?

Is that meant to be funny? When are you going to grow up, how old are you?

Almost as alt as you!!! he he he he he he

What are you doing?

Trying to start an oldercation!!!!! guffaw


note from editor

today’s thought of the day, a Bitsnbobs Sunday special service, explained here, ends at this point because the alter ego dissolves into laughter....

A Bummer.

Woke at 8 – damm, too early - today of all days I wanted to lie in.

I used to wake never before 11…… but that was a very long time ago indeed……..

Hey, there’s a cat on the corner of the bed, black, soft, sweet….

Foot hurts, bummer…

No messages on the phone, bummer…

Tea?

Yeah….

Climb down, meet more cats, say hello, look in mirror – pff.

Kitchen, hey, what’s this?

Cake, cards, parcels and Clementine slices in a circle around it all.

Yum!

Hmmm, surprises, the kids did that – shall I wake them?

No, let them sleep, kettle, tea, back to bed, write this.

Check emails, no messages, bummer….

Read the newspaper, play a game, look out window…..

Someone’s up, spot daughter’s legs – “hello”

No answer…

Music starts playing – Altered Images, a ritual in this house.

Cat leaves …. son, daughter and babysitee replace.

Happy birthday, thanks, breakfast?

OOOOOH parcels, open them, cards too and flapjacks from the babysitee – but I have to give the tin back.

A shame, nice tin.

Hey – I got a card from the cats!

My niece sent me a bag of rubbish – it’s another ritual.

Contents – rubbish.

Wash up.

Put washing up away.

Babysitte shows me this on youtube, I show her this.

Look out window, it’s raining, cold rain, snow-is-somewhere-else rain.

Make lunch.

Wash up.

Walk through cold rain to car, watch daughter drive to piano lesson.

“hey you look nice”

“yeah I got dressed up for your birthday”

Wow.

She didn’t know it was raining then.

Sit in car outside piano teachers house, write this, take photo of rain splashes in bucket.

Think, is my birthday over?

Drive daughter to dance class, sit in car watch rain, fall asleep…

Walk to bar, wait in corner with hot chocolate, meet old drunk who says – you never look any older.

I say, it’s my birthday, I AM older.

He says, are you staying for a drink, I decline.

Buy pizza from the takeaway, drive home, put pizza in oven, kids planning to go out, think – I’ll sit on sofa, maybe watch…

SURPRISE- door opens, Martin, his wife and a huge pot of curry walk in.

Martin has a new game with him, tells me to take the pizza out of the oven, I do, we eat curry, kids leave, we play.

Martin didn’t let me win.

Bummer.

A Quiz of The Year 2011 RESULTS!!!

Ok, I AM a bit drunk, so if I come over as grumpy pleeeeeese forgive me.

BUT!!!!!

Quiz of the year?!!!!!!!

EH?!!!!!!!

In 2010, at the end thereof, I posted a quiz of the year 2010 – here’s a link – and boy did I get some gip.

It seemed that people found it really hard, in one case one person’s marriage ended in the divorce courts simply because of!

Still, Mary waltzed of with the grand prize and here is a picture of it with her.

Mary is on the right by the way.

So this year I thought I would make it realllllllly eay.

Hang on… ther’s an s missing there…s.

Realllllllllly easy.

I posted the 2011 quiz here, and the post included a hint – a linkable hint, i.e – if you clicked on the word Hint (as you can here) and IF you READ the post you would clearly (if you are awake) read the bit that says – and I quote –

“Everyone that would like to do a Bitsnbobs Quiz of the Year 2011 should send in a question to include before December 24th 2011, I’ll add one and that’ll be it.”

Obviously anyone - and I don’t want to mention any names Saffy – who sent in a question AFTER the deadline would not get their question included , so the bitsnbobs Quiz of the Year 2011 had ONE question.

It was clearly marked with a “1.”

Even so - and I don’t want to mention any namessssSSS-aff - some folk were totally lost.

Other folk, maybe wisely, just ignored the whole thing.

Clearly the ANSWER TO THE QUIZ was – YES.

That would have won the big prize.

But no one said “yes” and today I am officially closing Bitsnbobs Quiz of the Year 2011.

So no one won and I am keeping the grand prize – in fact I have just drank half of it.

Maybe Saffy should have won a she made a sterling effort?

Oh yeah?

Convince me.

n.b this photo (above) will feature in the Quiz of the Year 2012!

Do-be-do-be-do.

If you have read this, or this or even this, then you will know that when I go to the airport I buy a copy of Wired magazine, the intention being to educate myself, though the result is usually abject humiliation.

Sometimes the problem is simply one of vocabulary but sometimes, I just don’t get it.

It’s my birthday soon so I’m feeling old and the latest edition of Wired is making me feel even older.

According to the latest edition 100.000 people have signed up as registered users of an URL-based alternative to the telephone offered by a San Franciscan based company called Vox.io.

I’ve read the article three and a half times and I still can’t understand why I should need to join them – it’s not that I don’t like the idea of what it does, but as far as I can see I can already do what it does with what I already do it with.

Do-be-do-be-do.

Clearly this is an old guy’s attitude to things; a business maxim seems to be that if there is something people can already do, if you repackage it then at least 100,000 people will register to do it even though they are already doing it.

Do-be-do-be-do.

Plucking Hell.

Is it just me that finds the photo posted yesterday - a fish shop with a wet floor - very funny?

Probably.

So ......... when was the last time we talked about plucking eyebrows?

Let’s look……

Blimey, never!

We spoke about a lot of things but somehow we just seemed to have missed the subject all together, so let’s put things straight.

Which, when it comes to my own (eyebrows) is practically impossible.

Being somewhat bushy that they are.

For the first half of my life I didn’t really think about them – they were there, doing their thing and like my dad’s they were a jungle unto themselves.

Then one day I got picked at audition to juggle a pot of paint, a brush, a padlock, a hard hat and a something-i-don’t-remember for an advert wherein the Director deemed that my eyebrows needed a good pluck.

So plucked they were.

And plucked they have continued to be.

I found myself thinking about the process again just the other day.

I was a guest at Charlotte’s birthday surprise late afternoon breakfast thingy and I had a chance to study a few 17 year old female eyebrows.

Wow!

They were good!

Talk about Audrey Hepburn!

So this morning I had a look at mine.

Wow!

Talk about Worzle Gummidge.

My technique over the last 20 or so years has been to look in the mirror in the morning and if one, or two, are sticking up, or down and out of line – plucked they get.

I realised this morning that sleeping as I often do with my head crumpled into the pillow on one side, the right eyebrow has been constantly rumpled and this is probably the reason I now have a thatch over the left eye and a moth eaten carpet over the other.

I must strive harder for plucking balance!