Birds of a feather

Or rather: a bird's feather. This morning I got the answer to a question I wasn't even aware of burning in my mind for many years: do magpies have black and white feathers? Or do they have black-and-white feathers? You probably weren't aware of it either, but I bet deep down inside you were wondering too.

Now you know.

I like magpies. To me they are crows with a sense of style. Plus they have an amazing Latin name: pica pica. And they look really gnomish when they're young:

Dumber than a donkey?

The Dutch have a saying that goes something like this: "A donkey never trips over the same stone twice." Obviously meaning after it trips once, it learns how to place its hooves as so to avoid tripping again. So when somebody makes the same mistake twice, they get reminded of how not even donkeys are that stupid.

Yesterday it rained, so I borrowed one of the gazillion umbrellas we have lying around at work. They were ordered a long time ago as a promotional gift for people who visited our stall at a fair, and had our company logo stamped on it. For some reason, they were never handed out, though. So I took one of those lovely umbrellas, stepped outside and within 5 seconds I found out why we didn't give them to our clients. The opening mechanism was faulty, so after opening it did actually click into place, but not without taking a bite out of my finger. Meaning I have a big gaping hole in my left middle finger. Yay. Well, actually it's barely more than a scratch, but it hurts!! REALLY!

This morning the skies had cleared, therefore I dutifully returned the umbrella, but in the afternoon it was pouring once again. So I took the umbrella with me once more. You read the intro to the story, so I don't think I need to explain what happened. Suffice it to say I now have a matching crater in my right middle finger. *Sigh*

So that makes me dumber than a donkey. Do I feel bad about that? Heck no. I love donkeys. They're ponies! Gnomish ponies! With bunny ears!!

Messin' with da mastah?

The big four-oh. Am I coping? Quite well, actually. Imminent midlife crisis: check. Sports car: check. Contemplating piercing/tattoo: check. Desperate attempt to appear younger than 40: check. (I have feathers in my hair, I'm a chickin!!)

So far I'm living up to stereotypes/prejudice quite nicely. So when challenged by a couple of teenagers to engage in a game of laserquest, it seemed only natural to accept. And make short work of them.

I came, I saw, I kicked butt. 

I know where the bunnies went (and what they were up to!)

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieh, baby bunnies!!!

Drooling over dresses

I mentioned it before, my guilty pleasure of 'reading' the Daily Mail. And the best days to read this sorry excuse for a newspaper is the day after the Academy Awards ceremony or the Met gala, to get a glimpse of all the beautiful (and in some cases not so beautiful) dresses.

For me, the winner was this stunning blue dress:

The runner up was this wonderful Carrie-dress:

Least favorite dress was a case of: no – just no.

Message from the GODS

Hear ye, hear ye!

Extensive research by the Gnomish Overlords Dictionary Society (GODS) has revealed that the word 'pingo' is falling into disuse. The GODS would therefore like to draw your attention to the word as well as the phenomenon pingo: the formation of an ice mound during a big freeze, which will collapse after temperatures rise again.

For the lesser informed, here's the pingo in a nutshell:

So tell all your friends, spell it out during a game of scrabble or generally steer any conversation you're part of towards the topic of ice ages, just to show off your knowitallism. 

After all there are sufficient other words that contribute far less to the gnomish dictionary – or society in general to be frank – that have to go first. So to prevent any future risk of losing perfectly usable gnomish words, the GODS are of the opinion that the following words shall be placed on a shortlist for imminent removal:

• Caravan
• Football

This list will be updated periodically, so stay tuned. Suggestions can be submitted to the GODS, but will very likely be ignored.