Chris Hansen’s blog

• 07:34 @MrPandaBehr my mom used to refer to my ‘stache as a “cookie duster” as crumbs would gather there. what were you eating? #
• 07:38 @jallen285 that’s how they check. they look at the picture pretty thoroughly, choose one feature (crooked nose, nip out of an ear) then look #
• 07:44 @MrPandaBehr what’s an electronic itchstopper? is it exactly what it says on the tin? #
• 07:46 @besskeloid i might be frightened if i were a mouse, or if the owl were the size of an elephant. #
• 08:53 @degenerasian You did note that the date on the New Scientist’s hay fever article was April 1st?? #
• 08:55 good morning, tweeters mine. Yesterday was a horrible one for £ outgoings (trip, microwave) so I hope I don’t have to spend a lot today. #
• 09:21 @helenroper hope you enjoy it. remember that it’s all about knowing how to take a multiple choice test and what you learn is up to you. #
• 10:20 Bacony goodness, but will give your cardiologist a year’s tuition for his kid: is.gd/d9aL #
• 10:21 @helenroper glad you got someone else to pay; i had to pay for my own and the Indian Outsourcer, my master at the time, didn’t reimburse me. #
• 10:45 Today’s Great Headline: “Police: Man Skips Out Of Paying For Prosthetic Leg” is.gd/qtAA #
• 13:50 even tho the website said it was in stock, the store now says the microwave i ordered is out of stock. faugh! asked for refund. #
• 17:25 busy afternoon. M&S for coffee &c, then mow the lawn, strim next to the fence, and cut out more ivy. now listening to PM skewer a minister! #
• 17:26 oh, left the back door open for a while and Fierce Squirrel came in to my study to beg for peanuts. #
• 18:35 now show on now…only mildly amusing. radio 4 comedy started going down the tubes when “Old Harry’s Game” turned up on Thursday nights. #
• 20:15 Listening to Bach’s Fugue in G Minor at St John’s, behind the bar. The merlot is awful 🙁 #
• 20:16 Interval. Din-din! #
• 21:27 Listening to “Amazing Grace” after dinner. Lovely. #

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The coach had put together the perfect team for the Detroit Lions. The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he couldn’t find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl win. Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghan Muslim soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away.

KABOOM!

He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney.

KA-BLOOEY!

Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph.

BULLS-EYE!

“I’ve got to get this guy!” Coach said to himself. “He has the perfect arm!”

So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football. And the Lions go on to win the Super Bowl. The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

“Mom,” he says into the phone, “I just won the Super Bowl!”

“I don’t want to talk to you, the old Muslim woman says. “You deserted us. You are not my son!”

“I don’t think you understand, Mother,” the young man pleads. “I’ve won the greatest sporting event in the world. I’m here among thousands of my adoring fans.”

“No! Let me tell you!” his mother retorts. “At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn’t get raped!”

The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says, “I will never forgive you for making us move to Detroit!”

• 00:26 night night, tweeters mine. morn-morn, really. off to the land of nod. #
• 00:26 @kalandaka i might buy a book…my beloved loves squirrels and we feed loads of them at our back door and in Regents Park here in London. #
• 09:30 @soveren so why control your cruising? Go all out! Just be discreet. #
• 09:32 @nard and why can’t you? prices are low now, the dollar/pound rates mean that it’s cheap. stay with us (we’re not ax murderers). consider it #
• 09:55 @MrPandaBehr would love to see the video but when i log in to vimeo is says it’s private and won’t let me use your PW to see it… #
• 13:50 have booked my reunion attendance and one night’s room in Carman Hall. Now to get the flights set up. Will be complicated. #
• 16:30 @nard well, you’re welcome anytime. just tell us when. we have lots of room. #
• 17:03 have booked my trip to the US. Itinerary: is.gd/qjMy If anyone’s there at those times, I would love to say hi. #
• 17:07 @jallen285 left-handed! obviously an excellent person, well worth knowing. HWMBO and I are both lefthanded. #
• 18:29 @jallen285 is the jewel/world gym near Berwyn L station? I lived around the corner from it and shopped at that jewel (if it’s the same one) #
• 18:35 @chrys oh well, what can one do? 4 levels of bullet points? the author needs to be buried under a pile of bulletpoints. #
• 18:36 @MrPandaBehr oh well, if you’re not there we won’t meet; someday in the future perhaps. april just didn’t work as HWMBO can’t go away then. #
• 18:40 @chrys the refrain of the over-complex powerpoint viewer: “Will these be available later? Please?” oh dear. no more than 5 lines per slide. #
• 20:22 @jallen285 treasure island is still kicking? Jeez, small world. #
• 20:40 @sbrettell great! any chance of a Lodge meeting that week? I’m bringing my apron and suit. #
• 20:40 have just finished dinner, the dishes, and my Latin homework (not in that order). Augustine is very obtuse when discussing astrology. #
• 20:41 have also broken the door of the microwave, with our bread inside. must buy a new microwave and pry the old one open in that order! #
• 21:29 @jallen285 looks like a phone with an internet connection (thus kb). we have them in the UK in phone booths. #

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I am very annoyed with myself. I have had a Sharp microwave for the past 15 years—it was one of my first purchases when I arrived in London. It’s served me quite well for most of that time. Oh, there were a few annoyances: the directions are so arcane that I never used it to defrost food or anything of that nature. But, overall, it worked fairly well. The “instrument panel” had gotten loose, though, and I was wondering whether I needed to replace the thing. We also used it for storing bread out of the reach of the mice that have plagued us for years.

Well, now I do need to replace the thing. I heated up yesterday’s mashed potatoes in it so we could have it with our sausages and peas and gravy. I took the mash out, put it on the plates, then replaced the bread in it and shut the door, somewhat forcefully. The microwave went on! I pulled the plug and tried to open the door to investigate, and the door would not open. The spring that latches the door had obviously sprung.

I went online, looked at Which! magazine‘s website (nothing like keeping it in the family as it provides our bread and butter now as HWMBO works for them as a data analyst) and selected the second Best Buy for

When one goes in for an MRI scan, one is asked to remove all metal and jewelry from one’s person…body jewelry and that sort of thing as well. One gentleman in Colorado did so, and then produced yet another piece of metal from an unexpected place.

Well, I spent half an hour on the phone with Trailfinders and our trip itinerary is confirmed. You will find it at the bottom of this post.

We are staying with my brother in Marblehead for a bit more than a week. Then HWMBO is flying back to London and I will continue on to Washington, DC, where I will be staying with our former flatmate Brett. I currently have no engagements there so start filling up my diary. If there are enough people who want to meet me perhaps we could have a dinner party. I will be available to visit outside the city as well.

Then Acela Express up to New York, where I will be staying with for most of a week, with one night in Carman Hall because I’ll have to change in the middle of the day to be fit to dine with my classmates. The college reunion is the 4th through the 6th of June. Back to London on Wed 10 June.

My itinerary, if you want to see more detail.

An Easter URL.

• 07:30 morning tweeters mine. seems that teletwitter was the app that was crashing my computer nearly every night…glad i got rid of it. #
• 08:22 @jonk is Krispy Kreme still on the brink of bankruptcy? you may have to buy tons and freeze ’em if it goes under. #
• 08:32 @soveren good luck! #
• 09:05 @rustyrockets no downed “tools”? it’s your duty to continue that great tradition… #
• 14:02 a friend from the US got a scam email from London purporting to be a friend in trouble who needs $1,400 to get home.Oldest trick in the book #
• 18:39 @boyshapedbox it’s only bad if you don’t share the URL with everyone you know… #
• 19:58 off to see Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom at the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. I fear that HWMBO won’t like it but all other shows sold out. #
• 19:58 @devinjay what did you turn into when you went to bed?? Enquiring minds want to know… #
• 20:00 @boyshapedbox that’s one great picture. thanks for not making me search all of Flickr… 😉 #
• 23:36 @fj here if your CV is too long it gets trashed 9 x out of 10. i interviewed a guy at the big indian outsourcer who had a 10 pager. too long #
• 23:38 @MrPandaBehr wow, what a nice present. you are both very lucky guys. congrats on your anniversary. #
• 23:39 @jonk the Queen is tiny. You were right the second time. #
• 23:40 @nard london! LONDON! Must come to London! XXL awaits, as does MegaWOOF. #
• 23:42 @fj 2 is OK, if it creeps a little bit onto 3 OK, but no longer. What I do is condense my oldest job into 1 line: Co, Place, Title, & Date. #
• 23:42 @urbanbohemian oh dear. i shall go to bed unrequited. we all want ictures. #
• 23:50 @fj also find that contractors tend to have longer CVs…when i was younger i could do a 1-pager but i now have middle aged spread onto 3 pg #

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HWMBO and I went to the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival last night to see “Milk”. There are advantages to seeing it with a largely lesbian and gay audience. There aren’t any skeptics, naysayers, or downers in the audience.

There was a fleeting glimpse at the beginning of the apartment house I lived in on Castro Street when I was in San Francisco (1993). Milk’s camera shop had been next door. Most of the scenes shot in the Castro were not recognisable, as they concentrated on the people or crowds and less on the surroundings.

I don’t know what younger people would think about it, but for me, waves of nostalgia came over me as I watched it. I was in New York City and not yet out when the events depicted in the movie were happening. Yet, the activism of the 1980’s, of which I was a very small part, was inspired by Milk’s assassination. And by “inspired” I mean the ancient meaning of a spirit “breathing life into” the movement.

Milk predated HIV by a few years, but the activism that surrounded ACT-UP draws breath directly from Milk’s cry “I’m Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.”

Nowadays many gay men and lesbians are comfortable in their own skins and comfortable with their circumstances. But the injustices that Milk marched about often still exist. Lesbians and gay men are denied the right to marry (which Milk probably only dreamed about in his wildest dreams), they are often denied equal rights in insurance and jobs, with little or no recourse to the civil authorities. Young lesbians and gay teenagers are denied the right to be who they are, both by their peers and by society.

What are we doing about it?

When I was in San Francisco the “Widow Milk” was still alive and active (Scott whats-his-hame, the lover that Milk meets in New York at the beginning of the movie). He did a lot of good in the community.

I don’t believe that Milk would be very happy with complacency in the community. Until marriage is a right for everyone, he’d be marching in the streets with a group he’d rabble-roused himself.

The other thing that really struck me was the difference in society and its attitude toward lesbians and gay men back in the 1970’s and today. How many people felt the need to stay in their closets because it was just too darned dangerous to emerge. Lesbians and gay men are rarely called “homosexuals” today. In the movie, that was the only word that was used (besides the derogatory ones like “faggot”.)

HWMBO seems interested in the story, and I’m trying to find my copy of “The Mayor of Castro Street”. I know I haven’t tossed it (I never toss books) but do you think I can find it? Of course, I can find “And The Band Played On” which is greatly inferior. By the time he wrote “Band” Shilts was horribly twisted about bathhouses because he was convinced that he himself had contracted HIV disease from his very frequent visits there. And no matter how much people tried to convince him that keeping the sex in places where safer sex education could go on and condoms distributed, he insisted that the only solution was to close the bathhouses. The effect of that was to push the sex off into homes, public places, and toilets, where condoms might be unobtainable and safer sex education somewhere else. Bitter, twisted, queen.

I have an icon and a t-shirt of Harvey Milk. I shouild wear the T-shirt this summer.

I think that, for those of us who shave our faces (I won’t speak of other places, but if any wish to comment on that, please feel free!), one of the least likely things to do is to change the type of razor we use. My own father used double edge bladed razors until the blades became difficult to get and then changed to disposable razors. I have been using Gillette Mach 3 razors and blades for donkey’s years, probably since long before I got here.

So, changing razors, especially with a stash of blades in the cabinet, is a real wrench. But, I think I shall have to do it.

Two weeks ago I bought a King of Shaves Azor. Note that the company has cunningly registered the domain name “shave.com”. I would bet that Gillette and Schick (do they still exist, Schick??) would have given their eyeteeth to have registered that name.

The first few times I used this razor I cut the bejeezus out of my face. The way the blade meets your skin requires a bit subtler shaving technique than I had otherwise used. Much applying of styptic pencil later, I discovered how to shave with this blade. First, do not use gel or shaving cream, use a shaving gel that does not foam up but lubricates your face. Second, be very smooth in pulling the razor around your curves. That way you won’t be pulling your skin into the blades and slicing it up.

I’m sold. It’s just as good two weeks after starting to use it as it was at the beginning. No case or stand is needed as you can just put the razor into the cartridge carrier.

I won’t know whether it’s available in the US, but those of us who are here can get a good, economical, close shave from it.