Tetherd Cow Ahead

The latest* in the continuing saga of strange messages left on my answering machine.

Explanations?

*See ‘Half a Bladder’

It all started when I went to make a snappy reply to a text that a friend sent me. I meant to tap in ‘Damn slippy!’ but the predictive texting on my Sony Ericsson didn’t want to know about the word ‘damn’. It offered me:

Hmm. The dictionary is highly patchy but ‘damn’ seems like it should be covered. So obviously the word ‘bugger’ wouldn’t make it…. but what’s this?

‘Bugger’ is OK but ‘damn’ is not. Interesting. Well this of course prompted me to launch exploratory mission of finding out what my phone would and would not accept as proper. All the really rude words don’t appear, but the most perplexing thing I discovered is that the word ‘vagina’ is acceptable:

… but that ‘penis’ is not:

I wonder if I could get big money from Sony Ericsson for sexual discrimination?

I leave you with this thought: a person made the decision about what kinds of words the phone’s inbuilt dictionary would include…

Another thing I saw in the auction house last week was the mysterious Castleray Non-Electric Machine. “So What?” I hear you say. Well, the ‘non-electric’ machine had a power plug on it, and also was rated at 220 volts. It looked pretty electric to me.

The Non-Electric Machine was about a meter long, with maybe five or six horizontal rods joining two metal blocks, one on either end. There were a number of what looked like some kind of clips along the lengths of the rods. As far as I can tell, there were no moving parts. I was genuinely perplexed by this odd device so I am offering a ☆REWARD☆ to the first person who writes and tells me what the Castleray Non-Electric Machine does (I mean what it really does, with proof all you wits out there). The lucky successful Cow-o-phile will win a Tetherd Cow Aheadâ„¢ T-Shirt. Now, since there is actually no such thing as yet, that means you will also get the first Tetherd Cow Aheadâ„¢ T-Shirt after I design one. That’s just gotta be worth some creative Google searching.

Update: The Non-Electric Machine had gone from the auction house when I checked yesterday. This indicates one of two possibilities: either it didn’t sell and has gone back to the hopeful person who thought someone might pay good money for one of these things, or someone who knew what it was did pay good money for it. Or, I guess conceivably, someone who didn’t have the foggiest idea of what it was paid good money for it.

A person who falls in either of those last two categories is, of course, well placed to win their very own Tetherd Cow Aheadâ„¢ T-Shirt if they act quickly…

I get strange messages on my answering machine. It’s happened since I’ve lived here. Very few of them are directed toward me and I sometimes feel like some kind of unwitting spirit medium for the phone age. This one from last night:

Robbie, did I say “half a kidney, or half a bladder?”. It’s “half a bladder”. OK mate? Sorry about that if I made a mistake. Bye.

Thing is, I’m trying to work out a context in which this would make sense, but I just can’t. Half a bladder? Half a kidney? Here, listen to it yourself and help me with this metaphysical telecommunications conundrum:

[Link] – mp3 file.

It’s kinda de rigeur to make fun of the Japanese predilection for making up brand names that are odd or amusing to English eyes, but sometimes it can be poetically cute. My friend Annie bought me back this packet of gum from Tokyo.

If you have a hankering to try Watering Kiss Mint you can buy it from Giant Robot Store in four flavours: Lemon, Peach, Apple and ‘Clear’ (interesting).

Giant Robot Store – Link.

I looked in the tin 1 minute before and 1 minute after, but there was no observable change in the curry. Since then, a mild aura of suspicion has intruded upon my reality, as I wonder exactly what it is that happened at 12:45 on that otherwise unremarkable day of April 23, 2003.