confessions in a bottle
1:The Beginning I was sitting innocently on the beach, minding my own business when a huge wave slung this bottle at me. Luckily it was a plastic coke bottle and not a discarded wine bottle, which could easily have broken my nose. From inside I extracted the following message. My name is unimportant, you can call me Marion, no wait make that Rhiannon. If I get my choice it may as well be something sexy. I li...
100 Things to do when you're Bored
1. Write a list of things to do when you are bored. 2. Count the number of peope who die in Avatar (see The BodyCounters ) 3. Write down ten positive things about your mother-in-law 4. Play solitaire on your computer, blindfolded. 5. Drive your car to work blindfolded (only for the really reckless) 6. Sing all the songs on all the Beatle albums in descending chronological order. 7. Sit in the park with a...
What the Queen said, and what she really meant
"Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements." English interpretation: "My sister's a lush, my daughter in law bollimic, my son insists on making it out with a cow, my husband's so senile that he tries to put it in the vacuum cleaner and my favorite Corgi has eloped to America." --- "It's all to do with the training: you c...
40 more things to do when you're bored
O.K. so I know when I've got a good thing going. You loved my earlier blog 100 things to when you're bored. Here are 40 more ideas 1. Paint your monitor black. 2. Paint your monitor screen black. 3. Try to get the paint of your screen before your boss sees it and fires you. 4. Write a musical about four legged animals who sing songs based on a long dead poet. - Oh that one's been done. Sorry, there are...
Morning Zombies
You walk them, You feed them, You tidy up after them - you are one fine canine zombie. At the witching hour, Early morning, The zombies are walking the streets. With only one eye open, The slumber just broken The cyclops admits his defeat. The sidewalks deserted, Their life is inverted By four legs that are attached to a leash. Holy cow it's a weekend But they are ruled by the ...
The Taite Guide to Prisons for the Rich and Famous
Some Inmates have all the luck! "Gentlemen, I am warden Walter W. Felon III and I would like to welcome you all to the Beverly Hills Confinement Facility for the Rich and Famous. We don't like to think of it as a prison, more a home away from home with bars. We hope that your stay with us will be a happy and fulfilling one and promise to make every effort to meet your demands. To help do this I h...
The lighter side of death
Visiting Rites Susan Jane McCoy was a righteous and graceful eighty five year old lady who was spending the last of her days at the St Mary Retirement home in southern New Jersey. One fine morning she requested to speak to the local priest. "Father", she said in a broken, worn out voice "I feel that my time is drawing near and I have two requests." "Mrs. McCoy, you have been a faithful member of our c...
The Taite Guide to Gift Shops
Museums were first invented in Paris, France by Jean Paul Yurr Hedoff in 1789. Jean was employed by Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as a cleaner upper or as they called it in those days a nettoyeur de têtes. It was Jean's job to clean up the mess after a Guillotine. The poor man found that after a few weeks he had quite a collection of disembodied heads and blood stained clothing and a growing crowd of visitors who wa...
The History of Dating
The Caveman Era - the first date He: Uggh She: Uggh yourself He bangs her over head and drags her into the cave. Date over! ================== Romeo and Juliet Romeo [To Juliet] If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET [to her nurse] I swear, I don't...
Minuet: the future Twitter worth at least $1 billion
I'm the sort of guy who has all these great ideas but am unable to do anything with them, which is the reason my apartment is not next to Bill Gates mansion (or Hugh Hefner's for that matter). Some clever kids came up with Facebook , Twitter and Youtube and now take their baths in French champagne on their private 767 jet. Well I have this great idea which I will reveal in a minute, and if someone out there d...
ChatRoulette: what you've been missing
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The Internet Academy: An On-Line Syllabus for the Geeks of Tomorrow
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiakitnatahu is a real place. It is the name of an existing hill in New Zealand, or so the Internet claims.This comes from the same people who tell me that goldfish have a memory span of three seconds (how anyone measured that I don't know), and giraffes can't sing. The Internet is the basis for all our knowledge now. We have no choice but to believe...
50 Things to do before you hit the bucket
Everyone hits the bucket sometime so why not have some fun on the way. Here are some suggestions. Find Big Foot Stand on Big Foots foot Run the Arctic marathon making sure you the enormous white bear behind you stays there. Spend a night at the Paris Hilton Spend a night with Paris Hilton Find Waldo then donate him the home for Lost Souls Go to the airport and take the first plane flying o...
The Taite Guide to Project Management
Project Management Life as a project manager is comparable to a mountain climber's. The big difference being that when you get to the peak you find there is no safe way down. Whenever I get really down, my wife reminds me that it takes one women nine months to have a baby and no matter how you try it is impossible to perform the same feat in one month by impregnating nine women. It was a beautiful ...
Google Searching Taite - Come in Please!
Google is a great toy. You never know what you will find next there. I was wondering why my post 100 Things to do when You're Bored received so many hits from Goggle when I thought of checking the search keywords people used to get to my site (compliments of Google Analytics of course). Here are some the weirder ones. I swear they are all real. --- ...

Adventures With a Taxi Driver: Cretian Style, no hands driving

Crete has always been one of my favorite islands. Ever since Zorba, the perfect climate, momentous beaches and friendly inhabitants have attracted the jet set and make it a sure win win proposition. During a recent vacation we decided to go a little offbeat and escape to the southern part of the island called Chora Sfakion or Sfakia for short. As we didn’t intend doing a lot of traveling we passed on the offer of hiring a car and had a taxi service pick us up at the airport. We arrived in Iraklion Airport at 7 P.M and our baggage was the first of the plane. That was surely a good sign. As we left the customs a thirtyish man with short black hair and a beard was waiting for us. He introduced himself as Kosmo. On closer inspection he looked tired, but I passed that off to him being Greek – part of the temperament thing! So the wife and I pack into the taxi, me in the back, of course,, and we take off. The first few minutes were fine, then the road started winding and winding. Kosmo, being the experienced driver that he was, never took his foot of the gas no matter how sharp the bends were. After a further ten minutes Kosmo got a bit peckish and tucked in to a bag of peanuts. No need to worry, his right hand handled the steering wheel perfectly. Then of course his mobile rang.

My wife thought the whole situation awfully funny, but I must say that the sight of a taxi driver maneuvering the steering wheel between his knees is definitely not a laughing matter. So for the next few kilometers one happy go lucky Kosmo showed us how a professional taxi driver is able to drive no hands without speeding over the side of the cliff.

The last part of our journey called for a steep descent towards our destination. It was now dark out and visibility was almost nil at this stage. The ever winding road was had a clear white dividing line to separate the two lanes. Going around the corner it was impossible to know n advance if a car would be approaching the same bend from the opposite direction. This is when the worry beads come in handy. You may know them as simple beads that supposedly calm your nerves. To the experienced Cretan taxi driver, worry beads, or komboloi, have magical powers that allow them to ignore all white lines on the road and take the curves at 100 km an hour without blinking once. This off course didn’t do much for my blood pressure but then I had a whole week in front of me to unwind in. Now getting back to the airport, that was going to be another story. And a good kalinihta to you too!