Forget a native French speaker, you need to get some sheep on a zoom call with Diallo to convince him to send the iPad back. No one can say to no to a Valais Blacknose!
If a goat is getting off the subwayand a llama is getting on, which has the right of way if the goat isn't in a hurry and there's plenty of time for the llama to catch the train?
Creepy. I am against animals being abused. 50 miles in a crate to get to a wedding, then two hours or more of ‘petting’ later into a crate again for the journey back. If I was to suggest shipping in good looking humans to be ‘petted’ for two hours by guests at a party (or ‘establishment’) in return for a fee, there would, quite rightly, be howls of righteous outrage. 🐰
I think I understand the principle behind what you're saying O L O. And I think there is something to it. The human-animal relationship throughout history has been pretty terrible. My sense, in this case, is that the folks involved really do care a LOT for the animals they are responsible for, and when they say their animal friends actually enjoy the events, fwiw, I am inclined to trust them.
In any case thanks for sharing your perspective on this!
The simple test is would you let humans be treated the same way? Animals are sentient beings. I trained as an animal technician (1959-63) and cared for rats. I left my job when I eventually came to the conclusion that experiments on animals were (and are) wrong. I know from rats that they can inherit memories of traumatic experience from their parents, so, I am sure, can humans and other animals. For the record, I do not believe in God. I the U.K. there is a campaign to give the environment and animals statutory rights in law. I suspect there are similar campaigns in NYC and USA.♥️
Still thinking about subway turnstiles - how about a system where they are set by volume of exit vs entrance. So when a million people are exiting to get to a sports event and 4 people are trying to get on a train, 4 of the 5 turnstiles will only allow exits and 1 only allows entrances. Then when the sports fans are going home the turnstiles flip. Surely computers can do this?
They actually have this! A few readers noted in the comments last week that in England and I think also Australia, some turnstiles are programmed to go one way during rush hour, etc.
Several years ago I had a casual bus driving job. One day I casually drove the bus (and three people) about an hour from our small rural town, to a slightly bigger rural town so they could catch their connecting bus to a city. I looked back inside and saw a daypack on the floor and told them to not forget their bag. They said it was there when they got on. Oops!
So I opened the bag trying not to be too nosy, and found a wallet holder that had an itinerary in it, as soon as I saw the name and contact number I dashed off a text saying simply “you left your bag on the bus, call xxxx to get it back”.
Later that day the owner of the bus rang me saying he’d had a frantic yelling person ringing from Brazil threatening Interpol and all sorts of stuff and he had no idea what it was about.
I looked more closely into the bag and itinerary and it turned out that the person had left it on the bus over a week earlier, and had gone to his embassy to get an emergency passport so he could keep his flight home to Brazil which had happened two days before I found the bag. My short text was seen as threatening and ransom like!
Anyway, there was an expensive camera and an iPad in the bag, and, as it turned out, a couple of hundred US dollars in cash! Once he realised that he wasn’t being robbed, but was simply the victim of inefficiency (drivers are supposed to check for lost property after every trip), he calmed down a lot.
In the end, I was able to mail it to Auckland where he knew someone who was travelling back to Brazil and could take it home for him.
No google translate was necessary thank goodness, and I used his own money to pay for the postage. I just hope that the delivery person was honest and didn’t steal his cash.
I’d forgotten all about it until reading about your IPad story.
I don't think I'd invite a goat to my party. One of my guilty pleasures is watching YouTube videos where goats head butt and knock down children who mess with them (they deserve it!), or chase adults around and try to head butt them to the ground (they don't deserve it but they're grownups so I still think it's funny). I also enjoy watching the opposite -- with "fall down goat" breeds that freeze and fall over when they get startled.
Maybe I'd have a party with an aggressive fall down goat that attacks ill behaved children, but that I can just yell at and make IT fall over if it tries to attack ME. What's the cost per hour for that, I wonder....
Beer donkeys though, I was totally sold even before I knew what they actually were.
There's also chickens. Not too long ago I had two chickens (hens) that free ranged outside at my place. Very affectionate and cute, they would come when I called them and kept me company when I was gardening. They enjoyed treats including breakfast yogurt to garden grubs. I follow a woman in London whose chickens "fight" over who is sitting on her lap. And a few years ago I watched a documentary that introduced chickens into a nursing home for people with dementia. It was a great success and people would have chickens sitting on their laps (with a continence pad laid down first), or they would push a chicken around in their walker. Nurses would quickly clean up any messes inside. Next to the chicken yard outside was a purpose built covered area for people to sit and share tea or coffee. But the most impressive thing was how the people who lived there were able to talk to their chickens and to each other in a new way!. As I'm now caring for my elderly parents (my father has Alzheimer's, and both have other health problems) I'm thinking a pet of some sort might be a good thing. But, first, a week's holiday out of town and then a reassessment about how I spend my time and everything else!
Why not rent a waggle of wiener dogs for parties. I would definitely attend.
There’s a place here in Portland that has “bunny teas” with treats for people and bunnies that hop around the table and are available to snuggle and hold. We had one booked with my mom, granddaughters, and daughter-in-law, but I missed it because I was sick. Everyone else loved it though.
Oooh that sounds like so much fun, Debbie. And I love the weiner dog party idea too! Dachshunds are crazy in general, in my experience, so they'd for sure add a lot of life to the festivities.
OMG, it's definitely LONG past time to mess with Diallo. Get all of the instructions of how to pay DHL, and then notify him a day later that it's been taken care of.
Peter S for the win with the elegantly-articulated subway turnstile right of way rule!
Though perhaps it also bears specifying that in stations where turnstile and tracks are on different levels, etiquette defaults to affording exiters the right of way, even if you can hear that your train is just entering the station and are convinced that you'd be able to bolt down the stairs in time.
Of course, unapologetic monsters will disregard this point of etiquette as well. As they do.
Love these party animals. Our neighbors have goats. They eat the lawn so the neighbors don’t have to mow it. Very popular here. They’re so cute a friendly.
Forget a native French speaker, you need to get some sheep on a zoom call with Diallo to convince him to send the iPad back. No one can say to no to a Valais Blacknose!
Thaaaaat's a great ideaaaaaa, Rob!
🐑🐑🐑
If a goat is getting off the subwayand a llama is getting on, which has the right of way if the goat isn't in a hurry and there's plenty of time for the llama to catch the train?
This is why we need AI, Mr. Jensen!
Beer donkey? My parties are already 90% drunk asses, thank you very much.
Haha sounds like its BYO party animal at John's place...
“Unapologetic Monsters” 🤣
"All Are Welcome"
😂
Creepy. I am against animals being abused. 50 miles in a crate to get to a wedding, then two hours or more of ‘petting’ later into a crate again for the journey back. If I was to suggest shipping in good looking humans to be ‘petted’ for two hours by guests at a party (or ‘establishment’) in return for a fee, there would, quite rightly, be howls of righteous outrage. 🐰
I think I understand the principle behind what you're saying O L O. And I think there is something to it. The human-animal relationship throughout history has been pretty terrible. My sense, in this case, is that the folks involved really do care a LOT for the animals they are responsible for, and when they say their animal friends actually enjoy the events, fwiw, I am inclined to trust them.
In any case thanks for sharing your perspective on this!
The simple test is would you let humans be treated the same way? Animals are sentient beings. I trained as an animal technician (1959-63) and cared for rats. I left my job when I eventually came to the conclusion that experiments on animals were (and are) wrong. I know from rats that they can inherit memories of traumatic experience from their parents, so, I am sure, can humans and other animals. For the record, I do not believe in God. I the U.K. there is a campaign to give the environment and animals statutory rights in law. I suspect there are similar campaigns in NYC and USA.♥️
Still thinking about subway turnstiles - how about a system where they are set by volume of exit vs entrance. So when a million people are exiting to get to a sports event and 4 people are trying to get on a train, 4 of the 5 turnstiles will only allow exits and 1 only allows entrances. Then when the sports fans are going home the turnstiles flip. Surely computers can do this?
They actually have this! A few readers noted in the comments last week that in England and I think also Australia, some turnstiles are programmed to go one way during rush hour, etc.
Ok NYC no more excuses!!!lol
I need to have a llama sit in for me during my next zoom call. No heads up to my colleagues. I'll convince them I turned into a llama.
Great idea! OR just deny, deny, deny, SC. "What llama?"
Several years ago I had a casual bus driving job. One day I casually drove the bus (and three people) about an hour from our small rural town, to a slightly bigger rural town so they could catch their connecting bus to a city. I looked back inside and saw a daypack on the floor and told them to not forget their bag. They said it was there when they got on. Oops!
So I opened the bag trying not to be too nosy, and found a wallet holder that had an itinerary in it, as soon as I saw the name and contact number I dashed off a text saying simply “you left your bag on the bus, call xxxx to get it back”.
Later that day the owner of the bus rang me saying he’d had a frantic yelling person ringing from Brazil threatening Interpol and all sorts of stuff and he had no idea what it was about.
I looked more closely into the bag and itinerary and it turned out that the person had left it on the bus over a week earlier, and had gone to his embassy to get an emergency passport so he could keep his flight home to Brazil which had happened two days before I found the bag. My short text was seen as threatening and ransom like!
Anyway, there was an expensive camera and an iPad in the bag, and, as it turned out, a couple of hundred US dollars in cash! Once he realised that he wasn’t being robbed, but was simply the victim of inefficiency (drivers are supposed to check for lost property after every trip), he calmed down a lot.
In the end, I was able to mail it to Auckland where he knew someone who was travelling back to Brazil and could take it home for him.
No google translate was necessary thank goodness, and I used his own money to pay for the postage. I just hope that the delivery person was honest and didn’t steal his cash.
I’d forgotten all about it until reading about your IPad story.
Oh my goodness, Lucy. It is funny how we jump to conclusions, isn't it?
You certainly were kind to go through all that trouble. I'm curious—did the person do anything to thank you?
Not materially, but he was very grateful, it took a lot of emails and arranging.
I don't think I'd invite a goat to my party. One of my guilty pleasures is watching YouTube videos where goats head butt and knock down children who mess with them (they deserve it!), or chase adults around and try to head butt them to the ground (they don't deserve it but they're grownups so I still think it's funny). I also enjoy watching the opposite -- with "fall down goat" breeds that freeze and fall over when they get startled.
Maybe I'd have a party with an aggressive fall down goat that attacks ill behaved children, but that I can just yell at and make IT fall over if it tries to attack ME. What's the cost per hour for that, I wonder....
Beer donkeys though, I was totally sold even before I knew what they actually were.
I didn't know that videos of goats head-butting children to the ground was a thing, Reader, but I am very pleased by this news.
And I'd prefer a coffee donkey but yes, totally sold.
There's also chickens. Not too long ago I had two chickens (hens) that free ranged outside at my place. Very affectionate and cute, they would come when I called them and kept me company when I was gardening. They enjoyed treats including breakfast yogurt to garden grubs. I follow a woman in London whose chickens "fight" over who is sitting on her lap. And a few years ago I watched a documentary that introduced chickens into a nursing home for people with dementia. It was a great success and people would have chickens sitting on their laps (with a continence pad laid down first), or they would push a chicken around in their walker. Nurses would quickly clean up any messes inside. Next to the chicken yard outside was a purpose built covered area for people to sit and share tea or coffee. But the most impressive thing was how the people who lived there were able to talk to their chickens and to each other in a new way!. As I'm now caring for my elderly parents (my father has Alzheimer's, and both have other health problems) I'm thinking a pet of some sort might be a good thing. But, first, a week's holiday out of town and then a reassessment about how I spend my time and everything else!
Yogurt for chickens! Okay!
I love these stories about unexpected human/animal friendships. Thank you.
Wishing you a lovely holiday week Ruth!
Why not rent a waggle of wiener dogs for parties. I would definitely attend.
There’s a place here in Portland that has “bunny teas” with treats for people and bunnies that hop around the table and are available to snuggle and hold. We had one booked with my mom, granddaughters, and daughter-in-law, but I missed it because I was sick. Everyone else loved it though.
Oooh that sounds like so much fun, Debbie. And I love the weiner dog party idea too! Dachshunds are crazy in general, in my experience, so they'd for sure add a lot of life to the festivities.
A friend of mine just posted photos from the annual Wiener Dog Race in Hamilton, Montana! It's a thing!
OMG, it's definitely LONG past time to mess with Diallo. Get all of the instructions of how to pay DHL, and then notify him a day later that it's been taken care of.
Peter S for the win with the elegantly-articulated subway turnstile right of way rule!
Though perhaps it also bears specifying that in stations where turnstile and tracks are on different levels, etiquette defaults to affording exiters the right of way, even if you can hear that your train is just entering the station and are convinced that you'd be able to bolt down the stairs in time.
Of course, unapologetic monsters will disregard this point of etiquette as well. As they do.
LOL! As they do, JEBNYC.
You don’t see that on airplanes because the let the people off first!
Haha I'm laughing outloud imagining the opposite being the case!
OMG, I am planning a milestone birthday party and am VERY inspired by the idea of getting some party animals involved to spice up the action...
Oh cool, I hope you do, Amelia. I wish every party came with real-life party animals, but a milestone birthday needs this especially.
Where were you last week when I had a milestone birthday? :-)
So I asked ChatGPT 4o to.....
Write a joke beginning with "why did the llama cross the road"
To alpaca punchline!
Write a joke beginning with "why did the goat cross the road"
Because it was the baa-dest idea!
Write a joke beginning with "why did the snake cross the road"
To get to the other sssside!
I didn't understand the llama joke.
I love that you tried this, Mr. Greenberg!
I am puzzling over the llama joke too. Maybe I'll include it in the next letter and see if anyone else can figure it out!
Also, I just asked ChatGPT to finish a joke starting with "Why did Michael Greenberg cross the road?"
It suggested, "To redesign the crosswalk for better pedestrian flow!"
Oh wow and now I just tried me and it said, "To find the quirkiest people on the other side and write about them!"
Love these party animals. Our neighbors have goats. They eat the lawn so the neighbors don’t have to mow it. Very popular here. They’re so cute a friendly.
Wow CK. I thought I was one of the few with a thing for goats, but there's a lot Pro-Goat sentiment out there!