Marty_d

I am a winner

That seems like a cock-and-bulldog story to me...

I've just got back to Australia after visiting Vietnam, sitting in Sydney airport waiting for the Hobart flight. They call it the American war over there. I don't know why we went, or what the Yanks thought they'd achieve. Every Vietnamese person I talked to (apart from the hucksters trying to sell you stuff) was polite, friendly and with a great sense of humour. An interesting fact is that they burn cardboard shaped into shoes, clothes etc for their dead ancestors. They even burn fake money so the spirits can buy stuff in the afterlife. Now this next bit shows how lovely these people are. The fake money they burn is obviously Vietnamese dong. They then started worrying about the American and European dead in their country, not recognising the currency and going without. So now they also burn fake US dollars and Euros as well, so the foreign spirits are looked after. (Probably the more entrepreneurial Vietnamese spirits also grab the foreign currency because of the exchange rate!) But just think - regardless of how nonsensical the whole thing may be, they are concerned about the welfare of the dead soldiers who invaded their country.

Imagine the lack of genetic diversity if he's let loose on a captive population of Martian colonist women.

Makes me laugh, there's a few scooters getting around here with 2 extra wheels at the back on spring loaded swingarms. So they're basically a 4 wheel scooter. Only ever seen tourists riding them, the locals must giggle when they overtake them.

That's going to be a heavy bike, OT!

I'm sure I've seen him in Star Wars. On the dark side of course.

I get "coincidence" for 11. There's probably a German word of 50 in there.

Well if you're ever looking for images of a hairless cat, don't go searching for "shaved pussy" or you might have a heart attack.

12.

I don't get it. They have custard bao buns.

If you think Top Gun is bad, check out the Indian version "Fighter" - also heavily subsidised by their military. At least it has Bollywood dancing as well though.

Sadly, it's probably one of his classier moves, when compared with everything else he's done.

See? Needed again!

Doesn't Trump like taking other people's trophies?

It has its bonuses. Funnily enough, I had this conversation with my wife a couple of months back, without using the "mindful" term which I hate. https://theconversation.com/finding-stillness-in-motion-how-riding-a-motorcycle-can-teach-us-mindfulness-272396

Jeez, how do you corner with a square section tyre like that?

As far as I can tell a lot (in agricultural areas) is shared between a few families - fields, animals, equipment etc. We met an old lady who has the machine which separates the rice grains from the husks. Each farmer pays her according to the weight of rice processed - at 700 dong (about 4 cents) per kilo. To give some comparison, street food like bahn mi (salad roll) is around 20,000 dong ($1.10). Poor old thing had lost the fingers on her right hand to the machine, and was about 80, but still working all day. Fortunately now the tour company pays her a bit to show foreigners how the rice is processed. As far as looking after equipment, I reckon they're a country of motor mechanics - they must be good to keep the millions of scooters on the road! We've been here for 2 weeks today, and fly back Tuesday (arriving Wednesday).

Talking of tractors, we went on a bicycle tour a couple of days ago, the local guide was very informative. Apparently here the water buffalo were traditionally used to work the rice paddles. Now however there's a communal tractor in each area. The locals refer to them as "Chinese buffalo".

Well that gave it away. Mr Chekov - Walter Koenig

I think they missed a few letters in the title. The full word is "Megalomania"

You should see what they do with a scooter here in Vietnam. Not unusual to see 2 blokes on a tiny ancient single cylinder rustbucket, with the guy on the back holding on to a homemade trailer with a load of bricks or 6m lengths of steel. Lucky it's so flat. I don't think they'd make it up a hill.

IT

The thing is, most of us Tasmanians are fairly provincial. Most people in the south don't often travel the 200km to Launceston, and vice versa. I've known people who've lived their whole life in the Huon valley and never been further than Hobart. So the thought of driving 1000km+ is kind of alien to us.

There's already a substance that could very appropriately be named after him. I propose we rename it to "bull-trump".