Wednesday, September 06, 2006

That's not it

Ah, what to blog about today... D'you really want to hear about sharpening a bunch of auger bits? Doubt it. I briefly considered an entry about a Miniature Toolchest that was flagged up on the Old Tools List overnight, but the world and his wife will have that covered. In fact I see it's hit one blog already. What is it about miniatures that so appeals? It's nothing new, of course. We should all be a bit blasé about yet another tiny plane that can take real shavings, or a hammer that couldn't even dent a marshmallow by now. But nope, we all ooo and ahh and express amazement all over again. Oh I do it myself, I'm not immune. Look, you see? I'm going to use this flannel about not blogging about it as a flimsy excuse to include a picture. Too bad there isn't a better picture of the joints in the chest though.



Elsewhere, the indefatigable Chris Schwarz is apparently allowed to walk around unaccompanied in public while still managing to spend his time trying 14, or maybe 15, different ways to sharpen a scraper. I can ony assume he has a piece of paper signed by a doctor, judge or other pillar of society proclaiming "The bearer of this certificate is of sound mind. Yes, really, no kidding. Yes I know it's hard to believe, but what can you do? Apparently there's no law against it." But I make wiv der humorous joke fings at Chris' expense when really I envy him. Yes, I do. Fancy getting paid to do that! Me, I'm a natural for the position of "research woodworker". Just think; at last I could stop with the pretence of actually completing projects...

So there we are; a little light wittering and Houston, We Have A Blog Entry. Some people claim being able to write when you have nothing to say is stock in trade of a professional writer and that therefore it is a Good Thing. In my case I think it's just some sort of strange compulsion and a Bad Thing. I wonder if Chris'd let me have a copy of that certificate...?

Talking of which, a favourite joke of mine:

There once was a naval officer and he started to act rather strangely. Everywhere he went he'd pick up any piece of paper he saw, look at it, say "That's not it" and throw it away. This went on for Some Time and his fellow shipmates started to get worried (really odd behaviour apparently takes a while to be noticed in amongst the background noise of everyday odd behaviour on board ship...) Well the Doc was instructed to examine him. Couldn't find anything wrong. So he was sent ashore and the doctors there examined him, tested him, poked and prodded him. Still no joy, still picking up the pieces of paper and saying "That's not it". Eventually his case is referred upwards and lands on the Admiral's desk. He decides enough is enough; this paper reading character is upsetting morale so he must go. He signs the necessary discharge papers, sends it back down the line to the officer. He picks up the certificate of discharge, looks at it, smiles and says

"This is it"

2 comments:

  1. Al,

    Of course I have a certificate for you. You can get it by applying for our open senior editor position here at PW. I mean, Corwall to Cincinnati... how far a commute can that be?

    By the way, I have a follow-up post on scrapers that is less teasing. Sorry for the teasing. It must be Rob Lee's influence.

    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alas, yes, the commute was the brake on my road to PWW employment. I could tick all the lack of qualification boxes, easy... :~)

    Curse that Teasemeister and his teasing ways. Especially as he's barely dropped any hints at all recently, darn it. Now, 15 ways? Well if you include right handed and left handed seperately then I can get to, erm, 3...

    ;~)

    Sorry for my own teasing, Chris, and thanks for being a good sport about it. :~)

    ReplyDelete

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