What Will Aryeh Not Do To Make a Fool of Himself?

This is a question that I don’t think we will ever have an answer to, however on this blog we have seen numerous amusing pictures of me doing silly things. This post will be no exception. As you all know Eli got married a month ago, what not all of you know is the shtick that I did there. Most of them will not interest you so I will skip right to the good bit. I danced for Eli and Stacy while wearing a KILT and playing BAGPIPES. Since you probably want to see the pictures of me doing this, I will not disappoint you.



And of course a very special thanks to Mrs. Wasserman for the pictures. I will try and get better pictures but that happens when the photographer gets the proofs to Eli and Stacy.

On Sapotoxins and the existence of LeicesterFolk

In another victory for the human tongue, I'm still alive. See there is this beautiful chestnut tree outside my building that's just brimming with nuts. Naturally I microwave a few only to find they taste horrible and don't eat a single one. Looking it up I tasted a poisonous horse-chestnut filled with sapotoxins, which will explain the sore throat.
Remaining symptoms: none.

And here's a curious character, a brit indeed.

Gotta love the press

In case you've been hermitting in a cave for the last week, North Korea claimed that they've tested nuclear missles underground. In a wonderful piece of objective and topical journalism, Sky News reported on this issue by blabbing about Israel's nuclear capabilities. In particular, I quote:

Type "Israel nuclear" into Google's search engine and you get 28 million results. That is two million more than if you type "Russian nuclear". Russia may have a much bigger nuclear arsenal, but there is always more speculation and discussion about things that are secret. [link]

Usually we don't talk about politics here, and this post is no exception. This is merely an analysis of a poor piece of journalism, and I will not deal with the obvious overall slant of the article and its shoddy political journalism. After all, poli-sci people need something to do with their time.
So, with that out of the way, let's compare Google searches. The Israel analogue of "Russian nuclear" is "Israeli nuclear," not "Israel_ nuclear." In other words - not a fair comparison. So let's do it ourselves: "Israeli nuclear" gives 9.73 million hits while "Russian nuclear" returns 25.7 million. OK, more results about Russia than Israel. Well, I suppose we can try "Israel nuclear" which gives 27.7 million, still less than "Russia nuclear"'s 28.7 million. So their argument is deceitful in its presentation. That's no surprise.
But, as many other people have pointed out (sorry for lack of links), using Google's returned results to prove a point is stupid to begin with. A simple counterexample. If there is "always more speculation and discussion" about secret things, please note: "Clinton democrat" gives 12.2 million results, while "Bush democrat" gives a whopping 20.1 million reults. Do you think anyone really suspects that Bush is a democrat in secret when no-one's looking?
Stupid reporters.

What would you do to get some drugs?

Every Sukkot my grandmother comes to my house. Sometimes she forgets stuff, this time she forgot her medication. We called the local branch of the pharmacy she gets her pills from to see if they would deliver. They wouldn’t, so my family began formulating ways for us to get the drugs. Of course they eventually came to the conclusion “hey Aryeh has no-Jewish friends at Rutgers let him call them to see if they could pick up the medication for us”. Long story short I spent the last 45 minutes before Sukkot on the phone with friends, I also went onto Facebook to find some phone numbers. In the end I managed to get my friend Pasha to pick them up for us, he got the instructions to come around to the back of our house to find us. He came, with all the medication right after we had all washed for ha’motzi (so we could not talk, which of course resulted in my holding up a finger in the international pantomime give me a second). Well we got the Drugs and my Rutgers friends think that I am a bit crazier then they thought I was (if that’s possible). So if you ever need Drugs just call your college friends and say “can you get some drugs for me”.

Leicester the Factory Town

Dear Givers of Pessimistic Advice:


The engeneering building of the University of Leicester, clearly built in a festering slag heap from the industrial revolution a hundred or so years ago.


Houses typical of Leicester. It is so cold here that the rain pouring down has actually frozen solid giving the appearence of a blue sky.


Very European looking


One of the many colorless scenes in Leicester


One of the many plain and rundown houses situated on grassy lawns or garbage heaps.

130 Stairs

This coming week is Sukkot, and as such I'll be needing a sukka to eat in. However, the nearest sukka that I know of is down 130 stairs [check out that cool link]. This is not such a problem, as it's east to go down stairs. The problem is the way back up. By the time I make it back, I'll be hungry from all that exercise and ready to eat again.
So, I'm looking for suggestions for a quick, portable, easy to set up and cheap sukka that I can make so that I don't need to brave those stairs.

Commander Toad: A guest post

The following post was written by our mother, and posted on our blog for your reading pleasure:

In keeping with the frequent botanical theme that appears here, and because it is that time of year when Jews eat a “New Fruit”, I will post about when I bought a Chayote in that capacity in lieu of a pomegranate, star fruit, persimmon, etc.

No one in the farmers’ market was able to answer my question as to how to tell if the chayote was ripe (my fault I suppose, for not being able to communicate fluently in Cantonese or Spanish or Pantomime) so I took it home, placed it on the dining room table, and waited for it to look ripe.

At first, the Chayote bore an uncanny resemblance to Commander Toad (© Jane Yolen) with his cheerful toothless smile and smooth green complexion. Even more so after we added the raisin eyes (for a sweet new year, and all that.) So of course we named it “Commander Toad”.

Some time passed. Commander Toad‘s smug look started to look a little discourteous. We couldn’t tell if he was licking his lips or trying to make a rude noise.

Later. Were those wrinkles and age spots an indication that he was finally becoming ripe? Actually, it was moot at this point. We could no longer eat him anyway - he felt like a member of the family by now. Really, there was no reason at all for him to stick his tongue out at us.

Eventually the Commander became quite elderly and spent most of his time gumming asparagus and complaining about his children.

I think we had to make do with a Carambola that year.

IT’S TIME FOR A DWEEEEEEE POST!!!!!!!!!!

Well Sukkot is approaching, and as usual this Sunday my father and I found ourselves building our Sukkah. Our Sukkah is made up of a doors held together by hinges. We store our Sukkah in our shed during the year, and our shed also houses families of mice. We found this out when I found a mouse on the lawn mower and then realized that it had built a nest under the plastic of the mower. We went on to find a nest with three pink baby mice in it, this traumatized me a bit. Well back to the Sukkah, when we opened up one of the leaves and then came mice. One mouse went to the ground and ran into the grass. The other mouse decided to stick it out half way up the door, me and my father where forced to tilt the door on its side to shoo the mouse away. We finally managed to get the mouse off the Sukkah, and it immediately ran into a hole in the corner of the patio where it went in head first and left its tush sticking out. I would like to say that these where very young mice, no where near the size of the adult we found on the mower. I would also like to say DWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, DWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (me making funny little hand motions mimicking a mouse, if you have been around me enough you know what I am talking about).

I DONT THINK I CAN SAY DWEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! AS MANY TIMES AS MANY TIMES AS I ACTUALY SAID IT WHEN I SAW THESE DWEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! MICE DWEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Answering Machine Message

So I make it here, finally get the phone working and crikey! There is an answering machine message!
I've recorded it for you to hear below:



powered by ODEO

If the cool thing above doesn't work, try this link to hear the message:
http://media.odeo.com//files/9/1/4/892914.mp3
Any guesses as to what David says at the end of it?