Two Nicks

The First Nick

I Joined Facebook Yesterday

No need to alert the media; they'll find out soon enough.

Why?  Too much publicity—good, bad, and strange—made me curious.  Of course, after joining I looked around a bit, and found some people I know.  I also discovered that Facebook, like many social phenomena, has a cruel streak.  Nicholas "has no friends."  I'm going to fix that, but not before taking advantage of it to issue a hearty "nyah nyah."  (Or, the Dave Barry-preferred "neener neener," to which I don't subscribe.)  I'm going to "friend (the verb)" Nick right after I post this blogitem.  If he accepts my offer, which he is under no obligation to do, I'll have FOUR friends to his one!

Nick, I'll be your friend!

Richard

An Entirely Different Nick, Who Isn't Swiss but Might As Well Be

Regular millireaders will recall that I noted here the existence of the Swiss Expert Commission on Alphorn Blowing, a unit of the Swiss Federal Yodeling Association.  Although in his original contact he was on a different mission, I sustained this follow-up communication from Nicolas.  You can tell he's a different Nick from the spelling.

Seen your blog... enjoyed it a lot!

For obvious reasons I went through the Alphorn one (Wallowing - link from Terry ... ;-) ) and the recent "Chocolate Lab" from March 4. My son turned 4 on March 4 this year and he likes chocolate a lot.

Alphorn:

Your friendly and positive attitude assumes the Swiss have fun and make noise. Woefully I have to admit the Swiss are lacking sense of humour, barely have an idea how to have proper fun and they sure don't like noise. Look at me and I'm not even Swiss!  By the way: how dare you can say Alphorns make noise? Yes, if you blow it, of course. For some (not everybody) Alphorns make sound and are used to make music. Okay, originally it was a communications instrument but who cares today? What would you communicate anyway with an Alphorn (my digestion is a bit XXX after those Hershey Kisses).

Sounds like he's suggesting that the Alphorn serves the same purpose as Morse Code.  Hmmm.

I invite you commuting in a packed train in the morning rush hour and you would be surprised: if people talk they usually do it with muted voices. Maybe they try to listen to those Alphorns blown up in the mountains. It's unlikely the hang-over since they don't know how to have fun, as you remember ...

Chocolates:
You've exported the Amok from yesterday in the States into our region today with Stuttgart/Winnenden being just 3 hours away from my house (that 17-year old killed 15 people).  What about importing the aluminium collection and recycling from Switzerland to the States?  We do it since 20 or so years and are the World Champions in Aluminium recycling (at least the adverts say so). Throw your handful Hershey Kiss foils away but it makes sense collecting them with all other Aluminium: besides cans wrappers of large chocolate bars, plates from preprocessed food for the oven, mustard/mayonnaise tubes, covers of roasted nuts and lots more.

I was prepared to argue that the Swiss DO have fun and DO make noise, but now, knowing that the Swiss are the "World Champions in Aluminum recycling" I can't help wondering if he's won his case.

Since it can be collected with all types of tin cans (separated in the furnace) you usually have a big bag of valuable material when you go shopping and where you often find recycling collection points. At these recycling / collection points you can drop off Aluminium, Tin, Glass and Batteries (your AAs). Some places do even Metal, Glass, Porcelain/Terracotta, Cardboard, Oil (car & veg) ... and electronics.  I did communication in this project:  http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/*/59321/---/l=1 (I did the predecessor in this: http://ewasteguide.info/ )

If you plan such Hershey experiments again please let me know. My son would love assisting you in the recycling part of the job (he'd recycle the dark thingies, though).

Take care

Nicolas

... you might like this as a clever tool for your MPG chart:

http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/
Your Prius friends:
http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/49-Toyota/0-All_models.html

Register and log in seems to allow you to set it to MPG instead of l/km.

I did 38 MPG with the Prius so I went for a Diesel car: 35 MPG but with lots more ooomph and fun. Can't afford a ZR1 besides the Prius.

Thank you, Nicolas, for the interesting links and for writing much of today's blog!  If you sell the Diesel, take out a loan, and possibly mortgage your small, chocolate-loving human child, you probably CAN afford the ZR1.  I hear that trans-Atlantic shipping is very inexpensive these days.

Special Advertising Section Please buy this lovely blue Corvette ZR1!  Now, with Collector's Kit

NP:  "Roller Coaster Girl" - Shannon Kennedy

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