“Yes, Jacob, what is it?” asked the teacher.

“I don’t want to worry you, Miss, but my Dad said if I don’t get better marks, someone is going to get a hiding.”

Image via Wikipedia

A large snowflake was measured on 28 January, 1887; I mentioned it in a post in 2010; Google Doodle celebrated the anniversary of that snowflake yesterday.  

4,225 people came to my blog in search of a Google Doodle snowflake.  4,225 people went away disappointed, without even so much as one – one, mind you, out of 4,225 – ‘Like’ or comment for my large snowflake post.

I’m annoyed.  My stats are all out of sync now.  Google Doodle better watch it; I’m in the mood to take on a conglomerate.

And what kind of multi-billion pound business celebrates the anniversaries of snowflakes anyway?  I’m so irritated, I’m not even going to provide a link to Google, Google Doodle, or any snowflakes.  That’ll teach ‘em.

Signed,

Hacked Off of Stockport.

He said, ‘No thanks; the steaks are too high.’

*

Image via Wikipedia

It is only 10:44 in the morning and I’ve had 884 hits on an old post, Some Snow Facts.  Over six hundred people found it because they want to know the size of the world’s largest snowflake. 

For the record, it was 15 inches in diameter/38cm wide and 20cm thick.  It was observed in Montana, USA in 1887 and described by witnesses as “larger than a milk pan”. 

What a useless description – how many people use milk pans these days?  If one that size fell today, would we describe it as “half the size of a microwave – a big microwave, that is; about 2/3 of a small microwave, probably, unless you want me to go by the size of the inside, measuring around the glass front.  Does it matter what colour the microwave is?  I got it from IKEA: does that help?”

UPDATE:

As my stats for today are almost at 2000, I Googled ‘World’s Largest Snowflake’.  Guess what?  Google Doodle are celebrating the 125th anniversary of the world’s largest recorded snowflake.

Thanks for mucking up my stats, Google.  Time to give you the cold shoulder.  Consider me an ice maiden.  Who looks like a snowman.

For more Six Word Saturdays, go here.

The man replied, “Well sir, it was like this. We was drivin’ down the road, mindin’ our own business, when a big trailer truck came out of nowhere and creamed us. When I came to, I was in the ditch, and a trooper was pullin’ up with his car. He looked at the hogs, and they was ‘most dead, so he shot ‘em. Then he looked at my dog, and he was hurt real bad, so he shot him. Then he came over to me and he said, ‘How you feeling?’ I said, ‘I never felt better in my life.’ “

Click to view slideshow.

Hair today; none tomorrow.

You’d think at least one of them would have seen it.

*

I had not been swimming in ten years, and when I took it up again I thought I had better bathe and shave in preparation.  I was lying in the bath thinking I looked like Julia Roberts at the première of Notting Hill…  Let me clarify: I was lying in the bath thinking my armpits looked like Julia Roberts’ at the première of Notting Hill, and I was thinking about the photos in the newspaper.  Do you suppose she was lying in the bath that morning thinking, ‘I must remember to wax my bits…oh, what’s the point?  I’ll probably be upstaged by that Liz Hurley in some dress held together with sticky tape anyway; the only way I’ll be in the tabloids tomorrow is if I don’t wax my bits…hang on a minute…’ 

The moral of the story is: if you want your picture in the paper, don’t shave your armpits.

Or so I thought, but it’s been weeks now and I haven’t had a sniff. Not even from The Sunday People, and if they call I’m telling them I’d rather apply hot wax to my skin and pull it off with sticky paper. 

I thought this up in the bath but I have a dreadful memory, which is why I write everything down.  As I was in the bath I couldn’t write it down.  I use memory aids in the form of daft pictures in my head, which is why I imagined Julia Roberts using my wrinkle cream in our bathroom. It then occurred to me that this was completely ridiculous: as if Julia Roberts would be using my wrinkle cream! The only way I have it in is if some kind friend buys it as a birthday treat to remind me of how old I’m getting, and there’s no way I’m sharing it with Julia Roberts or anyone. Next time she sleeps over she can bring her own. 

You may think I’m a little crazy but you must realise that because of television we all feel we know famous people and can thus have imaginary conversations with them. They feel like our best friends, don’t they?

Sadly, this is not the case, as I discovered the day Julia applied for the Restraining Order and swore to the judge that the first time she ever met me was the day I politely offered to wax her bits.

The final candidates were two men and one woman. The agents administering the test took the first candidate, a man, down a corridor to a closed door and handed him a gun saying, “We must be completely assured that you will complete your assignments and follow instructions regardless of the circumstances. Inside this room you will find your wife, seated in a chair. Take this gun and kill her.” The man, shocked, said, “You can’t be serious! I could never kill my wife.” The CIA agent said, “Well, then, you’re obviously not the man for the job. Take your wife and go home.”

They brought the next candidate in, the other man, and repeated the instructions. This man took the gun, walked into the room and closed the door. However, after five minutes of silence, the door opened and the man handed the CIA agent the gun, saying, “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill my wife. I tried to pull the trigger but I just couldn’t do it.” The CIA man said, “Well, then, you’re obviously not the man for the job. Take your wife and go home.”

Then they brought the woman down the corridor to the closed door, handed her a gun, and said, “We must be completely assured that you will complete your assignments and follow instructions regardless of the circumstances. Inside this room you will find your husband, seated in a chair. Take this gun and kill him.” The woman took the gun, walked into the room, and before the door closed all the way, the CIA agents heard the gun start firing. One shot after another, for thirteen shots, the noise continued. Then all hell broke loose. For the next several minutes, the men heard screaming, cursing, furniture crashing and banging on the walls; then suddenly, silence. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “You guys didn’t tell me the gun was loaded with blanks! I had to beat him to death with the chair!”

There were so many comments about hair yesterday, I thought I’d reblog an old post on that very subject.  I wrote it way back in 2009 so I doubt if any of you have read it.

I don’t like shopping; I never have, even when we had plenty of money. I am intimidated by bored and rude sales assistants – but at least they are better than hairdressers. Hairdressers are scarier than dentists; scarier than walking Stockport streets at night; scarier even than a doctor’s cold hands at a five-yearly check-up. They hold the key to my appearance in their hands, and I am powerless to stop them having their wicked way with me.

I once had a hair cut. I asked the hairdresser to bob my hair to the top of my shoulders, and give me a fringe. As she was combing my hair she remarked on my natural kink, saying that she had one and it was useless trying to fight it. She decided to give me some layers to make it manageable, and then she began cutting, and cutting, and cutting; a snip-snip here; a snip-snip there; here a snip, there a snip, everywhere a snip-snip….

I was in the chair for at least an hour but by the time I realised how short my hair was going to be, it was too late to protest. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and her friendly chat had lulled me into a state of torpor.  She bobbed me to the top of my neck, not my shoulders, so I had what’s known in the hairdressing trade as ‘short hair’.

The hairdresser later confessed to my Mum that she just couldn’t stop cutting, and I was sitting so quiet and accepting that she kept talking and cutting and cutting and talking and cutting in panic.