WNW: Unicorns

So this video made the rounds last week, and seeing how it known that I have both a fondness for unicorns and toilet humor, it was pretty much inevitable that I'd post this here. Especially since it also has a favorite of mine, a Briton with a posh accent talking about poop.



And now for the point of this post... actually, wait, I don't need a point. This is my blog, and I can post hilarious unicorn pooping humor if I want.

But I do have a point, and that is this:  I'm one of the 2,000 people who five-starred the Squatty Potty on Amazon. It is, as they say, the shit. Because not only does it work like they say it will, but also -- and this is the big selling point for me -- it keeps your legs from going numb if you, like me, enjoy reading while on the toilet.

I dunno about you, but I think that's awesome.

And now I want ice cream.

WNW: Santapoop

I've been a fan of Poo-Pourri videos for a while. Anything that shows a posh Ginger talking about poop in a delicate British accent is, to me, utterly hilarious.

Then I saw their latest video, and knew I had to share it.  Merry Christmas, one and all!

Putin the Boot In

Look, I tried to come up with a better pun, but "Putin on the Ritz" didn't seem relevant, and "Crimea River" seems both ignorant and insensitive, so this was the best I could think of.

Anyway.

I'm sure you good folks remember my story last fall of how Vladimir Putin, during his KGB days, tried to get information from my mother while posing as a tourist?  As it turns out, lat week there was a story in the Independent Journal Review titled "When Ronnie Met Vlady," and as you can guess, it was about how President Reagan met Putin -- who was again disguised as a tourist, and who was still a KGB operative -- when he traveled to Moscow in 1988.

That's Putin on the left. No word on whether or not the child in the foreground is
supposed to be his kid or not. 

So, there you go:  Photographic proof that KGB agent Putin posed as a tourist, 4-5 years after he tried to turn my mom into an asset.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to prove that this actually happened... probably because I know that it sounds like such a BS story, but I'm honestly not trying to BS you guys!

Speaking of Berlin, and in an interesting coincidence, I found this blog post by Not Clauswitz, and  I actually had an OMG I WAS THERE! moment.

This is the changing of the guard at the Neue Wache, which (at the time) was a "Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism" that was dedicated in 1960. We will set aside, for the moment, the cognitive dissonance involved in having goose-stepping German soldiers guarding a tomb dedicated to the people who were killed by other goose-stepping German soldiers about two generations prior, because there's another story I want to tell you:

On this same trip to Berlin, my parents and I went to see this changing of the guard, as it was a major tourist attraction for Westerners (and probably compulsory attendance for East Berliners). We were along the street, not the sides, and because I was a young child I was in the front row. As it happens, we were right in front of the soldier on the left.

Now, perhaps it was because I was small and they were large, or perhaps it's because I was young and impressionable and thought that because they were Communists they were evil, uncaring people, or perhaps the guards just like putting on a good show -- but I swear to you that I thought he was going to kick me right in the face.  You can see how high he steps, and that's approximately head-high to a 10 year old. And he came so close that I could see that his boots had no tread (probably so they'd get that impressive smacking sound on the pavement).

Here is a nifty video showing the changing of the guard. At the 2 minute mark, you can see just how close they get to the onlookers. While I was probably perfectly safe, as I was behind the marked line, to this day you cannot convince me that the guard would not have kicked me right in the head if I had been too close.






Here is another video, this time taken from the side:





There you go: Putin and jackboots. Perhaps not too terrible a pun after all, now is it?

Friday Funny Story

I originally wrote this story on Facebook in reply to a picture someone posted, but it's too good not to share -- and there's no way I'm letting all this typing to go waste.


It was either 1983 or '84, which means I was 9 or 10 at the time, and we were living in Europe because my father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. (Name dropping for those who would like to fact-check: the base was AFCENT; it was in Brunssum, the Netherlands; my father was part of the Readiness Group that handled, among other things, the Fulda Gap strategy. If you know what Able Archer 83 was, you can blame my father for part of that.)

So anyway, for our yearly vacation we decided to visit Berlin. The thing about Berlin at the time was that West Berlin was this little island surrounded by East Germany, and so there were only three ways in or out: take a plane to the Berlin airport; drive 100 km or so along a tightly restricted highway through Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo; or ride into the city on a train. I believe that, because we were military and my father was an O-5, we weren't allowed to drive and if we had to take the train we were required to take a military troop train. We could have flown, of course, but that was expensive.

So we took a British troop train, because we were cheap, and it was a long, crappy ride through a desolate countryside with husks of buildings on the horizon that looked like they'd been abandoned since the 1940s. I remember being disappointed that the British troops weren't dressed like WW1 Tommies with Brodie helmets on their heads and puttees on their legs. I was a kid, I thought dumb things.

So we get to West Berlin, and see the sights, and then we get on a bus to visit East Berlin. We go through Checkpoint Charlie and there's the usual drama of having our vehicle inspected with mirrors and dogs by armed guards. Because of some kind of treaty, all active duty military personnel were required to be in uniform, so my dad was wearing his Class B's, and because he was an O-5 he was senior officer aboard.

I told you ALL THAT so that you won't think I'm bullshitting you when I tell you the rest of this story. Hopefully I have established my bona fides that I really was there and not making stuff up.

So we do the usual tourist thing in East Berlin: see the Wall from the other side, see the goose-steppers changing guard, see the Brandenburg Gate, etc. Then we went to the only church (cathedral? My memory is fuzzy on this) in East Berlin. While there, my dad goes to use the toilet, and mom sits down on a bench to rest her feet. I was playing nearby.

While she's there, this German guy comes up to her and starts chatting. Says hello in German, mom says she doesn't speak much, so he does the "Oh, you are American? I speak English!" kind of thing. You know, friendly and enthusiastic, and he goes from asking her questions like "Do you like Berlin?" to subtle pointed ones about the size of the tour group, etc... basically pumping her for information.

About this time, my father comes back -- remember, O-5 in full uniform, fruit salad, the whole bit -- and he sees the guy, and dad just *knows* the guys is KGB. Guy sees my father, excuses himself, and makes himself scarce.

Dad doesn't think much of this, other than the usual "KGB trying to get information from an officer's wife" until about 15-ish years later, when he sees Putin on television. Dad says to mom, "That's the KGB agent who tried to pick you up in East Berlin!" Mom isn't entirely sure -- she doesn't have a good memory for faces -- but she doesn't disagree with him either.

So according to my parents, Vladimir Putin tried to turn my mom into an asset when we were visiting East Berlin.