Monthly Archives: October 2010

Making A List, Then Packing… for LONDON

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Need to work on a packing list, we always start gathering stuff, and then laying it out, and THEN making verbal lists. And we always forget something.

It’s not possible to overstate the importance of actually creating a personal packing list, and using it regularly. Such a list serves two principal purposes. First (and foremost), it’s a sort of contract you make with yourself, an agreement (and ongoing reminder) that if it’s not on your list, it shouldn’t be in your bag (because all the necessary items are on your list); this defends against last-minute attacks of “I might need this.” The worst possible time to be considering what to take on a trip is while you are packing for it!

It’s important to understand that the goal is a single packing list, not different ones for different trips. The primary purpose of the list is not to specify (or record) what you are taking with you on any particular journey, but rather to develop a model for your own travels, a constraint on your packing exuberance, a personal blueprint that you can refine over time (not change every time).

The world is awash with so-called “packing lists”. Thousands can be found on the Internet, and almost any travel store will happily supply you with what usually amounts to a list of the many things you might buy from them. And therein lies the fault of most such lists: they enumerate the possibilities, rather than eliminate the liabilities. A list of stuff you might want to take is very different from a list of things that you can’t travel (comfortably) without. Even the Internet’s venerable Universal Packing List is intended to be exhaustive, thus not at all the type of list that I am suggesting here (in the real world, author Mats Henricson uses a much different — and shorter! — list for his own actual travels).

The secondary function of a packing list is to help ensure that nothing important will be forgotten. The go-light traveller in particular is only carrying items that are essential to the journey, so forgetting one of them can be especially inconvenient.

via Using A Packing List :: One Bag.

UPDATE: Well, there are a few things I need to get done…or mark off that I’ve already done them.

Petsitter
Tickets
London Pass with 7 days Tube access
Check for shows/concerts the week we’re there
Hotel – in progress (working on some agent deal or other from a short list)
Refill prescriptions for various pills (CRAP! forgot to call the quack’s office today)
Pick up travel size bottles for non-incendiary liquids, potions, and lotions
New underwear might be nice
New socks (wool!) might be nice
? pairs slacks (at least 2 pairs, maybe 3 if room)
1 pair jeans
Jacket for going out (leather one too heavy?)
Pashminas – need handwash and iron them, but need to find them all first
Rain jacket
Walking shoes – have got
Going-out-to-dinnah shoes that don’t kill my feet – need
Sleep shirt
? Pullovers
At least 3 turtlenecks
2 or 3 long-sleeve shirts to layer
1 or 2 sleeveless vests to layer (NOT UNDERWEAR, Brits, more like fleece shells)
Extra carryall (need buy Harrod’s bag for Choirmistress Mary)
Maps and Guidebooks (need gather the ones we have already)
Sundries (!!)

Nice to hear from Mad Priest. The press release must have gotten mixed in with the junk mail!

Hoarder’s Songbook–“Don’t Hoard Any More, Mrs Moore”

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Oh, my GOD what a brilliant song.

Longtime lurker . . . But I was impelled to write a Hoarder’s song I hoped you folk (I love this board) might enjoy. It’s to be sung (with a broad Cockney accent) to the tune of the old music-hall song “Don’t Have Any More, Mrs. Moore” (you can follow along, bouncing-ball fashion, from this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Oi8Z210Z4 . Hope you like! I hum it while dusting. And scrubbing. And vacuuming.

Mrs. Moore, who lives next door,
She never, ever cleans,
She’s what you call a Hoarder—
She’s got Collyer Brother genes.
I don’t know her idea of a welcoming decor,
I said to her today as she was squeezing through her door:

“Don’t hoard any more, Mrs. Moore,
Mrs. Moore, please don’t hoard any more!
The more you hoard the more you’ll want, they say,
And enough is as good as a feast any day!
If hoard any more, Mrs. Moore,
You’ll have to take the house next door!
You love your pussy-cat,
But it’s all mummified and flat.
Don’t hoard any more, Mrs. Moore!”

Dr. Tonya Hoarding came and started in to gag—
The toilet’s on the fritz, so she was crappin’ in a bag.
A possum leaped out of a pile of garbage with a spring,
Dr. Tonya and the possum both began to sing:

“Don’t hoard any more Mrs. Moore,
Mrs. Moore, please don’t hoard any more!
The more you hoard the more you’ll want, they say,
And enough is as good as a feast any day!
If hoard any more, Mrs. Moore,
You’ll go crashin’ through the parlor floor—
All that glitters isn’t gold,
It’s bacteria and mold.
Don’t hoard any more, Mrs. Moore!”

1-800-Got Junk? trucks pulled up into the drive.
Organizer Matt looked in and said, “Well, sakes alive!
I’ve seen sail cats and bags of poo inside a hoarder’s house—
But here’s a first, I just pulled out a mummified sail spouse!”

“Don’t hoard any more Mrs. Moore,
Mrs. Moore, please don’t hoard any more!
The more you hoard the more you’ll want, they say,
And enough is as good as a feast any day!
If hoard any more, Mrs. Moore,
I might lose my esprit de corps!
You’re too nuts for TLC,
So just right for A&E—
Don’t hoard any more, Mrs. Moore!”

“Don’t hoard any more Mrs. Moore,
Mrs. Moore, please don’t hoard any more!
The more you hoard the more you’ll want, they say,
And enough is as good as a feast any day!
If hoard any more, Mrs. Moore,
You could open up a Goodwill store!
You’ve got clothes like a bazaar,
But you still can’t find a bra—!
Don’t hoard any more, Mrs. Moore!”

Via TWoP: Charlotte Vale

How They Get The Lines So Straight In Stripe Toothpaste And Other Useless Trivia

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Stripe Toothpaste

There’s some kind of “Click LIKE if you were a Crest kid” thing on Facebook today, but after giving it some thought, I realized that I was really more of a Stripe kid. I was always fascinated by the crisp, straight red lines (the new blue stuff really doesn’t do it for me) and I wondered how they did it. I did assume that there was something going on in the innards with different colored pastes, because when I looked at the tube opening closely, I could see the little openings around the rim. Chalk this one up to “Huh, so that’s how they did it.”

I was wondering recently about this very thing, and why Stripe had gone blue, so to speak. I suppose too many parents were traumatized by the sight of their kids foaming at the mouth in various gaudy shades of red and pink. I could only imagine how in thousands of households in the late 60’s when original Stripe was introduce, how many excited kids thought they were going to brush their teeth with red-and-white candy-canes? Because let’s face it, Stripe was totally aimed at kids who like candy-canes… which must really have caused Stripe-based strife in homes that didn’t celebrate Christmas, maybe? To my knowledge, there was never a Hanukkah gelt-based children’s toothpaste, though if their had been there would have been a LOT of feverish swapping back and forth at the schoolyards.

Anyway, it’s all too easy for me to picture thousands or millions of children brushing merrily after begging their parents to get the product they saw on TV. And I imagine gobs of pink foam dripping everywhere, and horrified parents wondering if their kids had contracted some horrifying form of rabies, or raging gum disease. That’s not to say that there aren’t red toothpastes – just not a lot currently on the American market other than Close-Up, which is marketed more towards adults.

I’m currently using (pause to run upstairs) Crest Pro-Health so I’m a Crest adult, at least. Do I get a lollipop?

And that is probably why Stripe only seems to come in the “minty fresh” blue stripe now. That’s not to say that there aren’t red toothpastes (c

Toothpaste tubes are normally filled from the flat end, which is then folded over and sealed. In the case of Stripe, a red toothpaste was first filled around the special fitting; the white toothpaste, filled second, held the red toothpaste in place at the top of the tube.

When the tube was squeezed, the white toothpaste would run through the special inner tube, while the pressure of the squeeze simultaneously forced the red toothpaste through the tiny orifices at the end. With the flow of red matched to the flow of white, the toothpaste emerged from the nozzle perfectly striped.

Via The Straight Dope: How did they get the stripes in Stripe toothpaste?

That being said, I wish I’d been more of any kind of toothpaste ADULT in recent years. Even though I’d been seeing the dentist regularly, I slacked off about a year and a half ago, and so now I have to catch up, big time, with flossing and a special prescription mouth rinse. Meh.