In this edition of THE BITTEREST PILL, I discuss my old teacher Mrs. Wilson and how happy I am to think at she most assuredly must be dead. I took a brief stroll through Gerrards Cross on Google Street View, and I guess I got a bit nostalgic for my days in England.
My dad bought my mom an iPod Nano for Christmas. To get it to work, he had to also get a cable modem, and update his entire computer. No good deed goes unpunished…
We took the dog on a hike to distract everyone from the fact that we didn’t go East for vacation. We came back tired and happy. The dog came back with two ticks and an infection.
Premium Edition: Forty-nine minutes or so
Free Edition: TBD
There was too much I could relate to in this episode.
Got my son a refurbished iPod Touch. We do not do all the updates every time because sometimes the iTunes updates bog the computer down. So I plug in the touch and it says we need to update iTunes. Not just one update. “Ha Ha Ha – You need them ALL.” It was basically hours where I would shuffle to the computer tell it to perform function and shuffle to the small couch and sleep for a while.
As for having a dog that is a child I have one of those too. My Maltese is suffering from skin allergies. Every day with the Bendaryl. He also got an ear infection. Every day with the cleaning the ears and putting drops in. Keeping him from scratching. Bathing. Researching new food. Does he need grain free? Chicken free? Vegetarian? Raw Diet? Steroids? Penicillin? Allergy Testing? (Are you kidding me?!)
Wow, where do I start?
1. Note to self: Never email Dan when he is likely to be recording a show!
2. My tactic with elderly and technologically challenged relatives and in-laws with ipods is to just set up another playlist on my Mac to sync their ipod to and then copy in whatever they need from my library – believe me I have something for everyone, so finding 10gb or so of music is easy. They then bring their ipod to me and I update it, plus copy and sync any other CD’s they have. Then all they have to do is plug in the ipod to their player.
3. England in the 1970’s wasn’t the place it is now – let’s be honest, it was horrid, what with the power shortages, strikes, racism and generally shittyness. As a direct effect I think of the crap nature of life then, we produced most of the genuinely great comedies as I think this was a great way to escape reality – as you say, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, Porridge, Dads Army, Fawlty Towers and the Carry On films were great examples. Hard to imagine now, but the really big films in the cinema’s in the 70’s were the Carry On films, even when the Bond films came out.
4. The reason Mrs Wilson resented you probably wasn’t because you were a too-loud yank who can’t understand that the Country that invented the English language might know better than the country that bastardised it. It was probably because you were a yank who swanned into Gerards Cross to live in a bloody mansion for christs sake! Contrary to popular opinion and 50 years of pretty much every movie featuring England, 99.9% of the population do NOT live in Mansions generally or talk like Hugh Grant.
5. Canny Collar my friend – use it on Hugo and you will wonder how you coped. If it can instantly control a 90 pound labrador, Hugo will be easy.
http://www.cannyco.us/
Don’t get a Halti. As you say, you HAVE to be the Alpha Male, and that goes for you eating first, going through doors first etc. Pack Animals and you need to head up that pack!
Great show Dan!
As I was wandering around Gerrards Cross on the internet, I was taken by how “posh” it looked. I didn’t realize at the time that we were living in such a nice town. I had NOTHING to compare it to in England, and since the “mansion” seemed “old” to my ten year-old eyes, I didn’t realize we were living in relative luxury, especially for the early ’70s.
As far as I can tell, The Barn House as it was known was torn down and replaced by three or so smaller, newer versions.
A GREAT period for comedy. Warped me for ever.
From Wikipedia. You should come back to England and see how it really is! Not that everywhere else is a slum, but it ain’t Gerrards Cross!
Reputation
The exclusive Gerrards Cross is one of England’s most desirable places to live and is often referred to as ‘mini Hollywood’ due to its celebrity residents. Gerrards Cross has a reputation for being very upmarket and exclusive, with house prices being considerably higher than average. Located in the commuter belt of London, the village is the most expensive postcode to purchase a property in the country outside London. In February 2010, Declan Curry of the BBC described Gerrards Cross as “Britain’s richest town”.
If you are warped by this, imagine how I must be?!
Isn’t Google maps great! Finally you can walk through your old neighborhood, without running into people you know!
Keep your head up man, just because your not working doesn’t mean your unworkable.