468 - Dumping The Name On You, It Takes A Lottery Hard Work, The Hottest Kids' Game, and Mean World Tour

[9:15 AM]

Client - Foister, Sandra

"What are we gonna DO with all this crap?"

"No idea.  Wait, I know! Call Sandra. She'll find SOMEbody to unload it on."

Doesn't sound like a family name that has a good legacy...

[9:18 AM] Mr. Blue:

Heheh

[9:52 AM] Mr. Yellow:

I think I need a 3 year vacation

[9:52 AM]

Only 3?

[9:52 AM] Mr. Yellow:

Not sure what I would do. Probably that is too short.

[9:53 AM]

So...given 3 years of regular pay and benes with assurance of job at return, what would you do?

Its kind of the opposite approach of the "basic income" theory.  Still an interesting exercise though.

(Mr. Silvers's anthropologist persona pokes pith-helmeted head out of bush and holds up microphone).

Technically you'd have exactly the same available money...just 40+x more free hours a week.

[9:59 AM] Mr. Yellow:

Oh I would love to win lottery and never work again.

[9:59 AM]

I'd love to win the lottery and do lottery money sized projects.

I couldn't do nothing

[9:59 AM] Mr. Yellow:

Well, work is doing things you do not love to do.

So if you love what you are doing, then it is not work.

[10:01 AM]

(wince)

Novel and adventure writing and game design are all things I love, but they are definitely work.

My sister confessed she quit working on her book.

"It was too hard on everyone, not just me."

I knew what she meant.

I was getting up early, staying up late, ignored Mrs. and Silver Jr. for hours and days and weeks – and irritable over their interruptions. 

[12:34 PM] Mr. Yellow:

I guess that is why authors who have families always thank them in the forward.

[12:34 PM]

Probably, yes.

[3:23 PM]

Speaking of fire...thinking of playing Snapdragon this year.

Never knew for sure what it was, but having read it in an old book again...and through the miracle of modern YouTube...

There's some videos of actual 21st century people playing.

[3:25 PM] Mr. Blue:

Sounds dangerous.

[3:25 PM]

Looks dangerous

Therefore it's usually something played by children aged 6 to 16 in England

[3:32 PM] Mr. Blue:

Skin usually grows back anyway.

[3:32 PM]

LOL

[3:33 PM] Mr. Brown:

Makes meals taste different for weeks

[3:34 PM]

Looks to be mostly a boldness thing.  Even the people whose hands CATCH FIRE just tap or blow it out and shrug it off.  Must be a pretty low burn temperature.  I couldn't look it up though.

[2:45 PM] Mr. Blue:

So going back to the thing yesterday about having 3 years off with pay.

Lets say you plan 1 trip per year. 1 destination each. About 3 days spent at that destination. No tours. Just 1 stop. 1 relative geographical area

Where do you go?

Here's mine: Tokyo, Reyjkjavik, and either Moscow or St. Petersburg

[3:07 PM]

Ooo....been too busy for that question but I like it.

[3:08 PM] Mr. Brown:

Ireland, Scotland, Tokyo.

[3:08 PM] Mr. Blue:

I thought maybe Iceland and Russia are too similar, culturally, but I couldn't think of a better option.

If I picked an alternate it'd be some place warm / Mediterranean but none of those places really jump out at me.

Gonna change my answer

Iceland is cool but Reykjavik isn't some place you'd wanna spend a weekend... I'd need more like 5 days to see the whole country.

So Tokyo, Moscow or St. Petersburg and Budapest

That's the ticket... Budapest

[3:25 PM]

Bah...time is fleeting and I need a travel wishlist...

I'd visit the Sami...

Um...

[3:26 PM] Mr. Blue:

Hungarians are just swarthier Lapps

[3:26 PM]

Dad was big on Hong Kong, but I dunno...

[3:26 PM] Mr. Blue:

Not a lot of history...tangible history at least.

Just all glass and steel.

[3:26 PM]

Hungarians or Lapps?

Heh

[3:27 PM] Mr. Blue:

Hong Kong, I mean

[3:27 PM]

;-)

[3:29 PM] Mr. Blue:

Tokyo doesn't have much either, but I think there's still a little bit left... a few temples and some side-streets that are still pre-war.

[3:30 PM] Mr. Brown:

I just like Japan in general, so going to see it would be cool.

Even if I only stepped outside, looked at the big city, and got back on the plane

[3:30 PM] Mr. Blue:

Japan has all the positives of being *extremely* foreign and different to us... but also being extremely safe even for westerners like us that would stick out like a sore thumb

Japan has probably the most unique culture on Earth, maybe. Certainly amongst first world nations

[3:32 PM] Mr. Brown:

There, we are the people walking around with cameras

You can put on a colored wig and wear a tutu if you want

Nobody would look at you sideways

[3:33 PM]

Been watching Kirsten Dunst videos?

[3:33 PM] Mr. Blue:

They're very xenophobic, but like, in a respectful way

[3:33 PM] Mr. Brown:

They have ass walls

I would love to go there just to look at vending machines

[3:34 PM] Mr. Blue:

Yeah

Even the little things would be interesting

Just the whole kawaii culture

Like even steel companies and the DMV have cute little mascots

[3:35 PM] Mr. Brown:

I'd maybe find a place that still makes swords

Watch them do it, maybe

[3:35 PM] Mr. Blue:

Yep

They still have the wasabi farms and the tea houses that do everything the way they used to 400 years ago. I'm sure they have swordsmiths that still use traditional techniques

[3:36 PM] Mr. Brown:

We would be taller than most of them

[3:37 PM]

I'd go to Japan just not sure where...crazy modern or total traditional

3 days...just cruel

[3:37 PM] Mr. Brown:

I like the UK also, but there are lots of bombings there. lol

[3:38 PM]

LOL?

You've got some Mean World Syndrome

[3:38 PM] Mr. Brown:

Yep

Riding on a double decker... BOOM

[3:39 PM] Mr. Blue:

Scotland and Northern Ireland are the UK and they're alright

But yeah... England is messy recently.

[3:40 PM] Mr. Brown:

They have the moped mobs in England right now too

[3:40 PM] Mr. Blue:

Even if the risk of getting blown up is zilch, its affect on your ability to enjoy the trip isn't

Yeah, people are splashing each other with acid

I guess when you import 500,000 Pakistanis, don't be surprised when London starts resembling Islamabad

[3:41 PM] Mr. Brown:

At least in Scotland or Ireland you only have to deal with getting in a drunken brawl

[3:41 PM] Mr. Blue:

Or maybe the IRA, but they usually warn ahead when they bomb

[3:49 PM]

The most astonishing case of Mean World Syndrome I saw recently was in an Agatha Christie novel (“Hallowe'en” – The snapdragon thing was in it.  Murder at a Halloween party of a 12 year old who claimed she saw a murder once.  I figured out half. )

(Reading) "Damn...She makes it sound like the UK murder rate is about 1 per 100 and everyone is blase about it."

They kept discussing kids and young women disappearing all the time to the hands of mental defectives because there's no room at institutions.

This takes place in a sleepy little town with maybe 100/150 people implied.  Hercule Poirot visits a retired police detective he knew who settled there. 

(Poirot) "Any candidate murders or disappearances in the last few years the child might have seen?"

(Detective) “Oh a few... (rattles off a horrifying list of stabbings, throttlings, missing persons and highly-suspicious-but-deemed-normal deaths)"

"So nothing unusual."

"No. Why?"

(Me) "Jebus! Agatha was Crazy-Eights BONKERS!"