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Monday, 15 June 2009

  • Fresh

    So this morning I made myself some fresh orange juice to go with my breakfast. And as I enjoyed the sweet, delicious goodness I was reminded of just how different it was from store-bought orange juice. So I had a glass of that stuff afterwards, and let me tell you, when directly comparing, it becomes pretty obvious how artificial even the 'fresh, pure' orange juice from the green grocer really is.


    Those are oranges, all right. No doubt about it.

    So, I googled fresh orange juice, and I found this article! It confirmed my worst suspicions. Apparently, even if labelled as fresh and pure, orange juice from the store is in fact flavoured and perfumed! It has to be, or else it'd be tasteless. No wonder it tastes artificial compared to a glass fresh from my orange peels.

    Store-bought orange juice is apparently "heat processed, watered down, sugared up, doctored by flavour engineers and stored for a year." This then leads to an inevitable result:  "Juice companies therefore hire flavour and fragrance companies, the same ones that make popular perfumes and colognes, to fabricate flavour packs to add back to their product to make it taste like orange juice." No wonder it tastes like crap! I'm drinking sugared eau de toilette! And the worst part is, I didn't even realise how badly store-bought orange juice tasted until I a) compared it promptly and directly to fresh, and b) found out about these darned artificialities.

    If only juicing the stuff wasn't so time consuming and wasteful (how many oranges does it take to make a glass of juice?!). Oh well, maybe it's water for breakfast too...

Monday, 08 June 2009

  • Story of Bob (part one)

    So I says to Bob, I says, you can’t do that! You don’t know all the facts involved! And he says to me, he says, I do too! Crazy woman, you ain’t got no idea of all them complications! All that thar book larnin’ is giving you far too many high falootin’ indears. I think yous gots ta go and get a book ta burn it, not ta read it! Rots your mind! Luckily, a’course, I didn’t pay him no mind, see, but still I wasn’t too pickled by the whole deal.

    So, after Bob gone an’ left, I made sure I found mah shotgun. I said to myself, I said, if Bob thar is gonna be all condescending and whatnot, I gotta make sure I’m ready! If he tries nothing, I’ll blow his there head clean off! ‘Course, I wasn’t such a good shot since that dang pig went and kicked my eye, but nonetheless I could hit the backside of a bucking bronco at 20 paces. So, I gots my shotgun, and I went out into the barn to try and rangle up some support from Billy, the farm hand. 

    source

    Billy and I had been friends for a while now, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him. Him and Bob were real good friends, see. Them two had just gotten back from a tractor pull, and you don’t go to one o’ them with a fella you ain’t good and close to. Lucky like for me, though, he wasn’t too keen on Bob at the moment, on account o’ the fact that Bob had eaten the pointer of his big foam finger at the pull, thinking it was cotton candy. So, Billy was sour, and I figured the time was ripe for my asking o’ him to join my side.

    source

    Billy, I said, Billy, listen here. Bob said to me, he said, I’m all too full o’ high falootin’ idears! Now, you knows me, Billy, I ain’t one to take no crap from nobody! So, Billy, we gots ta do some’in’ about it. I’m thinkin’ we take this here shotgun, an’ we go blow ‘is head off! An I waved my gun about, all dramatic-like.

    Lucky for me, Billy had gone and bent over to pick up his own gun from the bundle ‘o hay at his feet, ‘cause my finger went an’ slipped clear onto the trigger, and dang near blow’d his brains out. That would’a been trouble for me, ‘cause I reckon blood’d be pretty hard to clean off the barn walls. I didn’t mind so much the thought o’ getting blood on the inside of the house, ‘cause it was a tip most days anyhow, but the farm was where the animals lived! Them cows fed me an my entire brood o’ kids, so I figured I gots ta protect ‘em from the sight o’ blood if I can’t do nothin’ else.

    Anyway, at this point after all my soliloquizing Billy an’ I had nearly reached the house, an’ I think by now both of us felt good an’ ready to do of a murder. Unfortunately, when I got to the door, I couldn’t open it! That dang Bob had gone and shoved some chair or some’n’ ‘gainst the other side, an’ I couldn’t budge it! I told Billy ta give it the ol’ shoulder, but he doggone-well bruises easier than a peach, so I had to do it myself. ‘Course, I got a pretty fair set o’ shoulders after all that cow-chucking we practise down this way, in order ta move them cattle from one field to the next. It don’t hurt ‘em much, an’ it’s a lot o’ fun, but it sure does tire them arms ‘less you know what your doin’.

    source

    After I battered the door ta little bits, I went to pick up my gun, but I couldn’t find it nowhere! Then it went an’ dawned on me that Billy had also gone an’ disappeared! Dang it, I yelled, you get back here wit’ my gun, Billy, but he ain’t nowhere to be seen, so I went into the kitchen to fetch me a knife. Then, I thought about it, and picked up a fryin’ pan, too. If Billy took my gun, I’d need some’n’ ta deal with him as well as Bob. I figured they were likely both against me now, but that didn’t halfin’ matter now much to me. Killin’ one measly coward of a man was as easy as killin’ two.

    Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw

Monday, 25 May 2009

  • Credible Creations of Catchphrases!

    In light of the tremendous success and adulation that the previous series brought with it (It wouldn't be an exaggeration to think of Beatlemania and supplicants visiting at 2 am asking for babies) I’ve decided to continue along the repetitive strain by creating a new series which I hope will receive as many awards as the previous ones have. Now, as I’m sure you’re all familiar with the premise of our most recent series, I won’t have to remind you that it involved much group interaction. That’s fun, of course – a lot of people enjoy the opportunity to get involved, but for this series I’d like to rebalance things a little, and shift them back towards onesided presentation. So, all that said, I’d like to introduce you to Credible Creations of Catchphrases!. Herein, I shall take it upon myself to examine a few select terms or phrases that have become common throughout the English language (or at least as far as modern vernacular is concerned). I think that my 45 years experience in linguistics qualify me for this topic (not to mention my 7 degrees, 2 of which have something to do with linguistics, if you squint a little.)

    So, for our first part of the series, we're going to look at the word "fluke," meaning an accidental advantage, or stroke of good luck (thanks, dictionary.com). This is a fascinating case of context lost. You see, in the 19th century whaling was a large and profitable industry (as was wailing, I'm told). As Captain Ahab has taught us all, a man, a harpoon, and a whale set the stage for an epic struggle. Unfortunately, killing a 30 tonne animal with a sharpened stick could be a bit difficult. Sometimes, the first throw didn't do the trick, and on some occasions the conflict could become quite dragged out.

    However, successful whalers quickly learned that whales have a crucial weak spot - their flukes. Whalers discovered that this spot, unlike the body of the whale, had much thinner skin, and a great many blood vessels close to the surface, and a solid hit would cause the whale to bleed to death in only a few minutes. However, it was quite difficult to hit, being relatively small, and in constant motion. Thus, should a whaler manage to hit the whale's fluke with the harpoon, this fluke shot, or fluke, was a lucky but successful shot!
    Unfortunately, the context of the phrase has fallen away, and all we remember today is the word "fluke," and the definition.


    Thar she blows!

    So there you have it! The first part of another patented nikbv series! Be sure to recommend so that everybody can enjoy as much as we have! Also, feel free to suggest further topics for discussion in later episodes!

Monday, 27 April 2009

  • Rate that Fruit! Part 3

    Okay folks, here it is! The event you've been waiting for all week. Part 3 of our exciting new series, Name that Fruit!

    Today's fruit is hard, acidic, and needs bletting - that's right, you guessed it, it's the Medlar!


    Now it's your turn - Rate that Fruit!

Wednesday, 22 April 2009

  • Rate that Fruit! Part 2

    So I know you've all been up nights from the excitement and the waiting, so here it is! Today's fruit is a good one! And remember, keep things interesting and individual. When rating the fruit, rate it however you want!

    Anyway, here we go, xangans; today's fruit is the Toyon! (no doubt known to many of you fruit fanatics as
    Heteromeles arbutifolia.)



    Now it's your turn - Rate that Fruit!
     

Monday, 20 April 2009

  • An exciting new Journey

    As many of you know, here at nikbv we're pretty fond of series. A lot of you will no doubt remember, Name that Xangan, News for Today and Forever, and perhaps even An Array of Deliriously Lucky Affairs. All of these series have been tremendously popular with you readership people, so today I thought we'd introduce a new series. Thus, for the very first time (unless you're reading this after it's no-doubt been time-stamped to high-heaven) I present to you... Rate that Fruit!

    That's right, xangans, I present a fruit, and you rate it! The key here is that you can rate it on any characteristic or requirement you want! At nikbv, we believe in freedom! So go ahead, make up a set of criteria, and give it a try. Just try not to wet yourself from excitement. Here we go.

    Our first fruit is... the Greengage!



    Now it's your turn; Rate that Fruit!


    Also, please Rec so that everybody can share in the Joy of the Game!

Wednesday, 01 April 2009

  • And now, for some Breaking News on Xanga Celebrities

    There’s been a lot of talk lately over the mischievous Vanedave prank, in which he created a site claiming to be some celebrity or other. Of course, this had a lot of people very excited, because the idea that a real-life celebrity might mingle with us common people can cause some mighty panty-knotting amongst certain crowds. I remained unimpressed, however. Random Xangans pretending to be celebrities is an old trick. Today, I’d like to introduce you to the flipside of that coin, something rarely talked about: celebrities pretending to be random Xangans.

    On that note, I’d like to come clean. Nikbv is actually a cover identity. This Xanga account is in fact run by the entire CBS news team.  That’s right. We’ve been pretending to act as one single blogger in order to channel our collective efforts into what we feel has been a fantastic creative output. There’s a reason this account is so popular, you know.

    Now, while this isn’t a Xangan claiming to be a celebrity, but rather celebrities claiming to be a Xangan, I’m sure some of you would still enjoy some proof. So, if you watch the evening news broadcast, approximately 27 minutes and 32 seconds into the show, we will let you know with irrefutable proof: five simple words will be said, in the context of a story, that begin with the letters that make up the amalgam NIKBV. We can’t tell you what those words will be, yet, but watch for them. You’ll know them when you hear them.

    Next after gaining such proof, many of you might like to know just what exactly we’re doing here on Xanga. While Vanedave’s fake celebrity pretended he wanted to take over teh intrawebz, I think the anonymity we’ve worked to maintain thus far has given us much perspective in the gaining of news and the interaction with you common people. Most of us here at CBS never get to interact with non-famous or unimportant individuals on a daily basis. So, the chance to mingle with all of you has been quite the eye-opener, and we like to believe that the past five years or so we’ve been here on xanga have been among our best news reporting years yet.

    On that note, we’ve got to sign off now – there’s a hint Obama may be considering buying a new tie – so we’d like to leave you with the following thought: if there are that many of us here working together to be NIKBV, what chance do the rest of you have? Have a good night, and thanks for watching (sorry, force of habit.)

NikBv

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  • insanity_deep
    thanks for the invite!

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