A job that is very exciting...

This was written in a comment on one of the blogs I read...

"[why does Oprah]...get to interfere with other people's lively-hoods. "

Does it conjure up funny images of urban black americans wearing hoodies in bright colours and telling Oprah where to go - or is that just me? after 2 glasses vino..

We interrupt this amputation to bring you...

I overheard a colleague at work talking to a customer on the phone the other day. After a period of listening to him carry on she interrupted with:

" - sorry to cut you in half there, but..."

Well I guess you could mistake "sorry to cut you off" as being hung up on.

Rock-solid advice

A colleague recently visited someone who had broken their ankle, who said their doctor had advised they:

"Would need to be sedimentary until it healed"

No more taking their health for granite.

trousers for genes day

Apologies to a certain family member for this, but I couldn't resist. I even tried for a day. In this certain family member's defence, it was a cut-and-paste job, so apparently the blame/praise lies with someone I apparently wouldn't be able to keep a straight face near.

In an invitation to a soiree at an uber (yet underground) cool bar included the following dress code:

Denim Trousers are acceptable with collard shirt and dress shoes

Apart from the obvious opener (what a gem!), I still have a mental picture of a gorgeous blouse made of kale and cabbage run up by my tailor just for the night.

Cornish aperitif

From The Manly Daily - every edition thrust into my letterbox whether I like it or not.
"When actor Victor Kline headed overseas to research a play he had an ulterior motive. [as if the opening line isn't atrocious enough... couldn't spare a comma?] After spending time in Dubai and Casablanca, Victor headed to Paris for more research and to propose to his girlfriend, x, on the Eiffel Tower. [some truly awful details edited out - in short, she said yes] ...

They celebrated with a couple of pastis near the Pont Alma Marceau."

I'm sparing you the rest. A lazy-arse journo/sub couldn't be bothered to find out what pastis is, let alone how to hook it up to the requisite grammar. For those of you who have worked out how hard it is to develop a taste for an aniseed liqueur mass noun that needs watering down to a cloudy colour - you KNOW you never have a couple of it.

Celebration - second attempt

Honestly, what does it take to get a bunch of bloggers to get of their blog-chairs and get to a blog-party?! You can lead a horse to rolling water, but it just won't gather moss.

So, I've set up an email RSVP link in the right-hand column. if you'd like to indicate your interest in celebrating our 2.5 year anniversary, then click that link and send me an email. The proof is in the pudding.

Neil D.

Change your position

Nothing more than a simple typo, but upon perusing one of our wholesalers' staff contact details one staff member had their their position described as the:

"Invertory Controller"

I'm guessing his job is to run around turning everything upside down?

drama school

The health department has just conducted a surprise inspection, made it half way through the building and, as we have been advised via internal email, will be returning in the unspecified near future to continue their good and necessary work.

response from general manager of hospitality is,

Is there anything we need to action proactively before they return?

I have been stumped trying to apply any amount of wit to highlight this - it all seems so pale in comparison.

perhaps they will return retrospectively?

NEWTOWN CELEBRATION BUMP

as my life is continually collapsing like a lung (unlike the administrator's life collapse which was more serious) so I only just read the celebration re. language funnies 2nd birthday.
And no-one else replied, so either you all suck (except polly who did reply and the administrator) OR you all snuck out and celebrated without me. SO I propose that we get serious re. celebrating (WITH me) and it should involve newtown and a cake of some description, or just really good vietnamese food I suppose...

opening a can of worms...

fans of johnnie darko will appreciate this...(SIC)
during convo with lovely, patient husband (or dh for those who participate on parenting sites etc. means dear husband which isn't important right now)
".. you know and then they would have a ... a mine field... no, what's the opposite to a minefield?"
"A mineless field?" said patient smartalec.
"No no, you know ripe with potential.."
"Well technically, a minefield is ripe with potential Nic." replies smartalec who is getting smarter with every witty repartee.
"NO, a .. a FIELD DAY!" yeah, they would have a field day in Melbourne."

Both dumbnic and smartalec fall about laughing, aah the fun we have in our kitchen before Nic has taken her medication and her coffee.

sorry - what??

"Mummy, how do you say tree in danguage?" (rhymes with language)
"in what?"
"in danguage"
"I don't know what you are talking about"
"HOW DO YOU SAY TREE IN DANGUAGE" (yes, that loud)
"I heard you, I just don't know what you are talking about"

Turns out that "danguage" is Giorgian for "Danish", I love the fact that my child thinks I can speak 7 or 9 languages...

Not the brightest spark

I was running a workshop for our sales team the other day, and in the middle of it one of them proclaimed:

"It's just a filament of your imagination"

I'm not sure if he then had a "the lightbulb switched on" moment and realised what he'd said, because he pretty much shut up on the spot.

Try to crawl out of this one

Open plan offices have much to offer, none the least of which are LFs. Here's another I just overheard:

"...and to do so would open a can of worms in a minefield"

Then silence, as this poor little digger was left realising his sentence was stranded in no mans' land.

Pay some irrespect

I overheard this as I walked past a workstation this morning:

"Irregardless, we should still..."

With all due irrespect, I think you've just committed a language funny.

Point of order

Last night while wandering along King St, Newtown, we came across a new eatery under construction. They had an advertisement in the window looking for various staff including:

Head Chef

Chef

Waitstaff

Barrister/Bar

So we've had the internet cafe, the bookshop cafe, the carwash cafe and now it looks like in the latest joint venture you can sip on a latte while waiting for your case to be heard.

Dark, sinister, or just an innocent mistake?

Is there any truth to the rumour that a LF blogger lists:

"johnnie darko"

as one of his or her favourite movies on his or her blogger profile? Is this the spin-off film following Donnie's brother, or the Director's cut featuring lots of whisky product placement?

ADHDvertising

It's the blogger formally known as g-dav here, reincarnated as the Doctor of Rocket Surgery thanks to losing my cookies when I got a new laptop, & Blogger changing the way their accounts work. Anyway thats not important right now. What is is the comment I overheard this morning in relation to a new advertising campaign that was described as being:

"A real attention stopper"

Maybe we've found the cause of ADHD - eye-stopping, attention-grabbing advertising?

Lonely Leaker

The Dazzler and I were thrilled to hear what David Hicks had had for breakfast on the day of his extradition and turned on the news that night in the hopes of finding out his lunch menu. We were not disappointed. (meat and salad roll)

We were, however, scandalised that someone had leaked some top-secret information regarding the inflight entertainment our orange person had chosen. We covered our ears so as not to hear that he had indeed watched The Departed. The Dazzler wondered

"How can the person who leaked that sleep with
himself?"

My guess is he was indiscreet about his last girlfriend and now has no choice.

Spare the rod

At lunch recently, a non-blood relative of The Dazzler effortlessly conveyed the idea that something her daughter had done to make life easier for her had, in fact, turned out to be more work that it was worth:

"She's just made a crutch for her own back, you know?"

Sometimes language funnies are just plain efficient.

Boring Administration post...not quite

Hi everyone...

I know I haven't posted for a while... that would be due to the collapse of my entire life around me...

But now that things are on the up, I've had time to check in and notice that our blog has just passed its scond anniversary. The first post was made on Arpil 21st 2005.

Do you think we should celebrate, with, say, dinner in Newtown?

Neil D.