Ephemeral Isle
Archives
Tuesday
1 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 12
You would have thought that living through the Great Depression was hard enough...
Wednesday
2 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 13
"Yes, Commander. Everything is going according to plan. Soon our brain-suction machines will be in homes throughout the planet and the Earthlings will be helpless against our invasion fleet."
Thursday
3 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 14
Wearing a corset to keep your digestive organs in place so they function normally? Good Lord, I thought de Nile was in Egypt.
Friday
4 March 2005
Marital Relations Department
Arthur was halfway through his sandwich before he recalled what his wife had threatened to do with his bait box.
Monday
7 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 15
Learn a new and better way to make a living, bring relief to the suffering of others, learn at home, be your own boss, and see that expression on women's faces that says that they're going to be screaming for the police as soon as they hit the pavement.
Tuesday
8 March 2005
Great Moments in Apartment Management
Sheldon dreaded having to fix Mr. Moskowtiz's toilet.
Wednesday
9 March 2005
The Nerd in the Machine
The Markivac was unique in the history of mainframe computers due to its backup system called "Murray Hammerschu."
Thursday
10 March 2005
Great Moments in Space Travel
It was at that moment that Leslie discovered the reason why curry was banned on most space missions.
Friday
11 March 2005
One Day in the City
But the truly vexing question was why the city even had a giant bin full of man-eating flying serpents.
Retro Future Update
Fabio Feminò's splendid retro future site has been refurbished and is up and running again at its new location, so if you've been looking for it or have never been lucky enough to stumble across it in the first place, here's your chance. It's in Italian, so either brush up on your Berlitz or use one of the Internet translators.
Monday
14 March 2005
Emma Hath Murdered Sleep
It's been one of those utterly wretched weekends-- no, that's not true. In fact, I've had any of a number of bits of good things happen from a splendid afternoon with the family flying a kite on the beach and finding a brace of rare books on space travel from the '50s and '60s on the same day. I've also managed a nice little flow of words that would normally make me quite pleased.
No, the sand in the spinach of my weekend has been that my daughter has a cold. Now, anyone who has dealt with a two-year old knows that they get a cold as often as I change my tie and part of being a parent means learning to live with the coughing, runny noses and all that goes with it.
The thing is that this cold has been aggravated by a double whammy of aggravating factors. First off, Emma is just coming out of the last stages of the stomach flu, so her bowel movements are looked forward to by us with trepidation. The other is that viral infections such as colds set off her asthma attacks, so at the first sniffle we have to dose her with all manner of medicines and steroids if we're to avoid another visit to the casualty ward. Said medicines do a nice job of this, but they also have the side effect of amping her up until she is bouncing off the walls like a loose rocket and has all the attention span of a more than usually distracted pigeon.
The other thing it does, we've found out lately, is throw her sleep schedule completely out of whack. Friday evening was one long battle from her eight o'clock bedtime to midnight as we tried to get her to put her head down and even then she was waking up every half an hour until we finally heard the television switch on at the ungodly hour six AM.
Since Emma hadn't near enough sleep and Mama and Daddy were equally deprived, we had one of those roller coaster days where she alternated between being happy as a clam and whining like she was behind on her cranky orders. We thought spending the day playing at the beach in the fresh air would tire her out, which it did, but it only made her solidly cranky. At last, in a death or glory attempt at peace, we bundled her into the car and drove around until she nodded off in the late afternoon.
So far so good. Unfortunately, instead of sleeping through the night as she usually does in such circumstances, our little hound from Hell woke up at one AM firmly convinced that it was morning and wanted to watch Chicken Run for the twentieth time in two days. Reasoning, bribes, and threats proving to no avail, my wife and I took it in turns trying to sleep while the other kept an eye on our little perpetual motion machine.
"Try" was, of course, the operative word, as Emma running about the house with one parent in close pursuit meant that the other got about as much sleep as one might expect in the seat of a crowded third-class carriage on the train between London and Carlisle.
Upshot: A Sunday where Emma has won the title of Miss Cranky Butt 2005 and Mama and Daddy have gone without food or sleep all day and have nerves as raw and frayed as two umbrella salesmen jockeying for space in a phone box.
Now I think I'd better post this before the hallucinations start.
Tuesday
15 March 2005
Springtime for Lebanon
Ever notice how pro-democracy movements have the hotter babes?
There's been a lot of good news lately since the Iraqi elections set a spark of democracy to the Middle East tinderbox. The Lebanese respond to a Syrian hit against an Lebanese ex-prime minister with pro-democracy demonstrations of over a hundred thousand people telling Syria to get the Hell out of Lebanon; Hezbollah and Syria respond with a rent a mob of half a million shouting that charmingly self-contradictory slogan "No to Foreign Intervention; Thank you, Syria;" and the Lebanese meet and and raise them with another demonstration of over a million. I think I know which player has the stronger hand here.
The beautiful thing about the Cedar Revolution is that it not only promotes freedom and destabilises neighbouring Baathist dictatorships, but it also helps keep your linens fresh smelling and bug free.
Wednesday
16 March 2005
At the Computer Fair
Here we see many of Internet's top bloggers looking on with excitement at the new advances in pyjama technology.
Thursday
17 March 2005
Happy Saint Patrick's Day
St. Patrick's Day is, of course, the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland, who in the 5th century... Oh, the deuce with it. I'm off for a pint!
Happy St. Patrick's Day from Ephemeral Isle!
Friday
18 March 2005
URRGGHH!! NGGRRHHH!!
Happy day after St. Patrick's Day. Ouch! Somebody tell that cat to stop stomping around!
Monday
21 March 2005
Great Moments in Aviation
The invention of the "Instaloo" pilot's seat was a major leap forward in the field of military aviation.
Tuesday
22 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 16
One of those business ventures that your wife will react to with a prolonged stare. Canned giant frog's legs. Yes, those are going to just fly off the shelves!
Wednesday
23 March 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 17
Tomorrow we'll be showing you the other stuff.
Thursday
24 March 2005
Great Moments in the Arts
Despite the obvious drawback of being pigeons, the Skinelli brothers were renowned as the fashion world's leading photographers.
Friday
25 March 2005
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter from Ephemeral Isle. I'm off for some family time, but I'll be back on Tuesday.
Tuesday
29 March 2005
Great Mysteries Department
8 June 1912: Scotland Yard is baffled by claims of witnesses that they heard a loud thud and saw the bodies of four children and a nanny come crashing to earth in Trafalgar Square.
Wednesday
30 March 2005
News Overload Department
"Now just remember to knock on the cupboard door when the General Election is over and there's a sixpence in it for you."
Thursday
31 March 2005
An Average Television Day
Well, someone has to watch MSNBC.
Ephemeral Isle