David Harding's Blog, page 5

My day in the park

I had a lovely day in the park today. Sunshine, soft grass, parakeets, wildebeests. I had a lovely time.

My beef rosti was lightly cooked and dunked in chowder by my slave children, my wine was cooled by the giant slabs of ice cream. Love was in the air and happiness was in the hor’s d’oeuvres. It was a lovely time in the park today. A lovely time.

I had a lovely day in the park today. The birds were singing Verdi melodies and the turtles croaked as we shot them from our grass hut. The natives whooped and charged in one line at the defences, and the British pointed and laughed before setting a gorilla and a gazelle loose in their direction. The thunder of battle almost knocked the pig off its spit but I righted it in time. It was a lovely day.

I had a very lovely time at the park today indeed. My mother folded origami as my neices played ring-a-rosie. The dogs wrestled and nipped at each other’s ears as I had fastened a steak to their foreheads. Mayhem ensued when the daschund bit the Prince Regent on the shin. How we laughed and sipped on martinis. How we laughed.

I sniffed the flowers that opened up, seemingly to shout, ‘This day is a fine day!’ It was a lovely time in the park today. A lovely time.

These wallabies watched us as we ate. Don’t worry, we ended up eating them. Gamey!

Me talking like me

Early at work this morning, I recorded these visual instructions to the great game Gorilla Dice.

If you want to learn more about the game, or how to talk like me, look at my old blog posts.

PS: The fans asked for this – Don’t blame me.

How to talk like me

People, people everywhere ask me how to talk like me. But the answer (I’m sorry to say) is quite complicated. How did I learn to speak this way? First, I was born in Australia, moved to New Jersey, returned with an American accent, went back to Australian again, learned French all through school, had numerous major head injuries as a youngster, and I often pretend to be German/Scottish born when I speak.

So, to speak like me you must…

1) Pronounce ‘e’ as ‘sh’

This means ‘mesh’ is said ‘mshsh’

2) Say ‘au’ as ‘or’

Which makes ‘sauce’ become ‘sorcsh’

4) I hate ‘t’ so I say ‘f’ instead

Therefore, ‘fat’ is ‘faf’ and ‘golf tee’ is ‘golf fshsh’

3) Drop every ‘i’

Then ‘Australia’ is said ‘Orsfrala’ and ‘ice’ is ‘csh’

5) Count out of order

6) Say ‘crikey’ a lot, and lastly,

7) All nouns must go at the beginning of every sentence.

Don’t complain, it’s just the way it’s done. Follow these seven rules and you, too, could learn to speak like me!

Drnk so up shvshrybody and salufsh msh! Lshadshr you’rsh nshw! And do f now, crkshy, tmsh by thsh counf 3, 1, 2!

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Movshmbshr phofo my progrshss. Crkshy!

How the USA election was received in AUS

MY TASMANIAN POP: I was surprised how quickly we heard the result.

MY TASMANIAN FATHER: Why?

MTP: They said it would take ages.

MTF: That’s because they thought it would be closer.

MTP: It wasn’t like the other one, that one took days.

MTF: Who? Bush?

MTP: No, the other one!

MTF: …Bush?

MTP: Yes! Bush!

MTP takes a sip of red wine and looks thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

Pedro: Art Champion!

My wife wants to know!

I couldn’t think of what to blog about so I asked my wife Jh (that’s not a pseudonym) if she could ask me anything at all, what would it be? She grinned and wrote the following questions which I have answered for both you and her.

Why do you always leave your used dental floss hanging half out of the bin, always?

Yeah, we’ll why don’t you ever SHUT UP?

What are your turn ons?

Hanging used dental floss out of bins.

Flicking bits off my dental floss onto the bathroom mirror.

Oh, and I really like Nachos.

Which of the following animals are you most like and why?

- Sloth

- Dung beetle

- Sasquatch

Not the sloth because I can move quickly when chased.

Not the Sasquatch because I am practically body-hair free.

So I guess it’s the dung beetle. And I do like spending a lot of time on the toilet.

A train leaves the station at 6:00 P.M. traveling west at 80 mi/h. On a parallel track, a second train leaves the station 3 hours later traveling west a 100 mi/h. At what time will the second train catch up with the first?

Miles? What is this? I don’t know miles. This is a trick question, isn’t it! That’s it, no milkshake with your brownies tonight!

Does my butt look big in this?

Not bigger than normal.

Jh made this octopus out of playdoh all by herself!

A+ Team, F- Book

My wife likes buying old, cheap books for our young boys who we love but it’s not like we want to spend lots of money on them.

Sometimes you find great books, sometimes you find…

The A-Team Storybook

Published: 1983 by Cliveden Press

Printed in: Yugoslavia

This is a terrific book but I’m not talking about the story. The pictures found with these covers say so much more than the words ever could. I have flipped through the book in order and grabbed the highlights. Just let your imaginations decide how the story goes…

Yes, this is in a kid’s book, yes the nice lady is wearing a fine looking hat, yes their facial expressions say it all.

I admit that riding an elephant through a war zone would be tremendous fun. As the tank shells explode around the giant beast you can look and feel as majestic as a rajah. But… Don’t you think waving to the victims as you pass takes it just one step too far?

Hannibal and B.A. – friends together

I wish I had a black box to put one foot on with my friend.

In thoughtful mood

This is the kind of intense thinking that got him a gold star once in Kindergarten.

Hancock’s crafty – like a fox

I just wish he could act – like an actor.

Face Man keeps on smilin’

He suuuure does.

Is he having a heart attack?!?

This is it people! Please stand and cheer for the greatest image ever published within a children’s book! Not only is this dangerous and bizarre but impossible! Gotta give him credit, though – he isn’t even wet!

I reproduce for you here a wonderful excerpt from the book, taken from the scene pictured above…

Rising out of the water of an adjoining pool, hurtling up through the air like a live Polaris, seventeen feet of angry killer whale was arcing towards him. On the back of the magnificent creature, holding onto its fin with one hand while he idly tossed stun grenades among Savola’s angry minions, was Howling Mad Murdock, making strange clicking noises in his throat as he urged on the posse of dolphins in his wake.

Excited? You ain’t read nuthin’ yet, sucker…

Murdock ignored him. “It’s a girl called Agnes,” he continued. “And she’s in love – she wants to make a date.”

B.A. snorted. “They gonna lock you away for good, talkin’ that way,” he said. “Whoever heard of a killer whale fallin’ in love with a sucker like you?”

“Oh, it’s not me she wants a date with,” he elaborated after clicking his tongue some more, then leaning over and listening carefully. ” It’s you!”

I leave you with this section of pictures depicting the attack of the overweight moo-moo wearing woman who gives the A-Team what for at the end of the book. Rock on!

I pity the fool who something or other, er… suckers! (There – got the catchphrases in.)

This book defies all explanation. I choose to give it 9/10 moo-moos.

The land of nachos

Imagine a land. A land where each step you take crunches up the floor (it’s made of corn chips), and it rains melted cheese (but not hot enough to burn you).

Imagine a land. A land where it smells like Latin America and tastes like heaven (it’s in the Bible, people!)

Imagine a land. A land where no one ever goes hungry, but most people end up quite obese.

Imagining it? Then you are imagining The Land of Nachos!

In The Land of Nachos, your shower sprays guacamole and milk tastes like sour cream. But everyone is happy because no one is allowed to live there unless they love that stuff.

In The Land of Nachos, ovens are only used to toast corn chips and at the movies you can’t buy popcorn or coke unless you want them to have nacho flavouring.

The Land of Nachos is also well known for its poetry (for some reason). Take William Shakescheese…

Thy love is like a red, red bean,

Cometh from Mexico, across marine,

The land from whence the flavours come,

Now a-mixing in my tum.

There are great films there too, like:

Nachoball (starring Bean Pitt)
The Wizard of Cheeze (starring Chewy Garland)
Goodbye Mr Chips (starring Grease Garson)
The Burps (directed by Hitchcock Gonzalez)

Just thinking about it makes me happy. Like completing a Rubik’s Cube or swimming with sharks and surviving to tell the tale. I have bought a one way ticket (and this is non-refundable so it better be as good as I’m making it out to be.)

So I hope to be seeing you there! Eating, munching, loving every moment of… THE LAND OF NACHOS!

This is what you can buy there.

Meet John Brown

How to play Gorilla Dice

In a previous post, I mentioned the classic game Gorilla Dice which I thought everyone knew, loved, played, dreamed about, loved, knew, loved, kneeled before and loved.

But I was wrong. So many people have asked me what this game is that I have bowed to monkey pressure and here (below) I write for thee the rules for…

Gorilla Dice!



Players: 1-4

Ages: 6-17, 19-90+

Length: less than 61 minutes

Setup:

Place 3 dice of differing colors (white, red, blue) in front of each differing player (these are your gorilla dice). Shuffle the Gorilla Dice cards and place them upside down in a deck in the centre of the arena (these are your gorilla dice cards). These cards all have different numbers on them from -6 to 6 (including 0.)

Each player then takes as many cards from the deck into (onto) their hand as there are players, plus one. (The player who looks most like a gorilla goes first.)

Play:

Everyone rolls their dice at the same time.

The total on the blue dice is your gorilla number, the total on the white dice is your banana number, and the total on your red dice is your murder number.

Basically, the biggest and/or most vicious gorilla wins each hand. But we won’t know who the biggest gorilla is just yet so put that idea aside for a moment.

Choose a card from your hand and secretly place it under your blue dice. The card plus the dice is your Big Boy number which comes into play at the end.

The player with the highest murder number (in case of a tie, tied players re-roll) attempts to kill another gorilla. They must name their target. They play a numbered card from their hand (added to their murder number) and their target does likewise.

The lowest number equals one dead gorilla.

UNLESS the target chooses to play a numbered card to add with their banana number. If this is higher than the attacker’s murder number, the attacker slips on a banana and the attack fails. Please note that any used cards are discarded and once you use your banana dice it is gone!

The original attacker then tries to murder same or other gorilla until they run out of cards or are killed by another rampaging gorilla.

The next highest murder number then tries to kill everyone else and so on. Last standing gorilla may shout “oogie-boogie” which is the wild cry of murderous monkeys and gorillas and hairy men everywhere!

UNLESS more than one player is still alive and all the cards are spent. Then it’s a brawl where just the totals on the dice count.

FINALLY you add the blue dice with your secret card and multiply that number with the number of gorilla kills performed and banana slips caused.

HIGHEST SCORE WINS!

Then play again until you have played as many rounds as you want.

PS: I will never stop using the word dice to represent a singled dice. Deal wit’ it!

PPS: Play the game and tell me if it works, I have no monkey idea.