Chet’s Chatter

What Kind of Coffee are You?

Posted on 30 May 2006 @ 14:28 in Being Silly

What Kind of Coffee are You?

You’re a Classic Cup ‘O’ Joe!
Take this quiz!

… you’re a favourite with everyone.

Yeah, right … NOT!

Boo!

Posted on 28 May 2006 @ 11:21 in Being Silly, Stress Busters

Boo is my favourite character from the movie Monsters, Inc.

Boo is also the nickname given by members of the Flickr PandasUnlimited group for the main staple in the diet of adult giant pandas.

What am I talking about?

Bamboo! Or boo, for short. Not Boo from Monsters, Inc, tho.

Oh, PU member yahlen has remarked that Tai looks like Boo. Tai also likes boo. No, wait, he likes Ma’s milk better, altho she’s beginning to wean him off it, so he’s having a mixed diet of Ma’s milk and boo. No, not Boo, but boo.

A Panda Love Story

Posted on 27 May 2006 @ 00:28 in Stress Busters

somesai, leader of our Flickr PandasUnlimited group, is currently on holiday in Egypt. justDM, our resident DI wizard, took a picture of Tai (taken by somesai) and a picture of Su Lin (taken by Cuquis), added in a scenic background, and posted it at the group’s Flickr site.

justDM added a caption below the picture, as well as a note inside the picture from Su Lin, while squarerootofcute added a note from Tai. Together, the words tell a story of how much all of us (humans and pandas) are missing somesai.

It’s been a week since he last seen his favourite personal photographer. Little Tai Shan together with cousin Su Lin decided 2 do a manhunt search.
Su Lin (left):	“So where’s somesai? U sure she’s not @ the Great Wall!?!?”
Tai (right):	“My mom said Somesai is in de-nial about not taking my picture. Egypt is where de Nile is.”

*Chet rolling on floor hooting with laughter*

A Boy named Phoebe

Posted on 26 May 2006 @ 12:44 in Friends, Travels

During the summer of 1988, my friend Susan had gone on a caravan holiday along the Norfolk coastline with her partner and their son. She later told me that she’d met a fellow caravan holiday-maker one morning.

“That woman told me she’d met my daughter,” I remember Susan telling me. “I told her I don’t have a daughter, but a son.”

After comparing physical descriptions of her son with the girl the woman had met, they decided it was the same child. Susan told the woman the child’s a boy with long, white blonde hair, so she could’ve mistaken him for a girl.

“But your son told me his name is Phoebe,” the woman then told Susan.

Fast forward 18 years, and I got to meet “Phoebe” (real name – Luke) who was home from university for the Easter break last month. He’s now a very tall, very skinny 20-year-old studying Geography in Scotland. He turned 20 the day after my unplanned visit, and the timing was such that if I had called the next day, I would not have had the chance to see him after all these years.

When I told Susan and Luke the Phoebe story, neither of them remembered it. After a while, she did start to remember it, and she even began to realise why it was that he told the woman his name was Phoebe. Turns out when Susan was young, her mother used to call her Phoebe.

“And it could be that my mother might’ve called him Phoebe when he was young,” she told me.

Well, with his long, white blonde hair, it was no wonder the woman believed Luke when he told her his name was Phoebe. See for yourself …

Luke / Phoebe with mum Susan behind him, circa 1988

Luke and Susan the day before he turned 20 (April 2006)

And one of the two of us that same evening

One of those nights

Posted on 24 May 2006 @ 02:20 in Janis Ian, Personal

Most nights, if I’m still up at this hour, it’s because I don’t want to sleep (go figure). Tonight, I’m still up because I can’t sleep. I have nights like this and tonight’s one of them.

I had gone to bed at about 11:45 p.m. and within seconds, knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep. So instead of willing sleep to come, I decided to get up and do some work.

I finished resizing and uploading Rowy and Lynda’s photos of the UK LRC to the online gallery that I maintain for Janis. Lots of interesting photos there, go take a look!

I also finally updated my electronic journal. Well, I updated some of it. What I do is write (or to use the current word, “journal” ) in my Dana and then upload it to my home computer. From there, I copy the entries into a software I use called The Journal. Looking at the very first entry there, it looks like I’ve been using it since 2002, altho I started keeping a paper diary more than 30 years ago.

I have almost half a year’s worth of journal entries in the Dana, and have just updated The Journal to February 2006. More work to do.

Looking at the UK LRC pictures reminded me of the first time I saw Janis “live” (in Singapore in late February 2005) and the second time I saw her (at the UK LRC followed by the Brighton concert in April 2006). That’s almost 14 months apart. Here are the pictures we took together on all three occasions.

Singapore, 26 February 2005