Just a chime....or??

[144man]

I suppose invading the Isle of Wight is out of the question then. I hear those Vectians are getting restless.

[westgrandboulevard]

I already invaded. They all live in the past - Osborne House, Queen Victoria, all that...

I announced I would convert the entire island into a Jurassic park. They objected, as it would mean they would lose Tesco.

Some people can't take a joke...

[144man]

I've been told that you can go to Parkhurst and feed the prisoners.

[westgrandboulevard]

I once formed a musical revue with the Parkhurst prison officers, and we entertained the prisoners. They were captivated.

[Jerry Oz]

Please tell me that you did a musical version of "The Shawshank Redemption" and not a cheesy knock-up of "Jailhouse Rock"...

[westgrandboulevard]

No, we did "The Rocky Horror Show"....

[Jerry Oz]

Were the guards wearing their riot gear?

[westgrandboulevard]

Yes, especially when they heard the prison governor had insisted on playing "The Narrator".

[144man]

When I saw it, the narrator was played by Nicholas Parsons, and very good he was too.

[westgrandboulevard]

He's amazing for 90.....which, with luck, gives us plenty of time yet...

[Jerry Oz]

Any bets as to whether the "Word Association" thread is still going strong when we're all in our rockers and thinking about the '20s as "the good old days"?

[westgrandboulevard]

Give us this day our daily Thread.....and there's a chance.....

[Jerry Oz]

It'll be our version of the old men who spend their days in the park playing chess with each other.

[westgrandboulevard]

Don't forget the old ladies, too. It will have to be a virtual oldies home, for Soulful folks....

[Jerry Oz]

Hah! It's kind of like that already.

[westgrandboulevard]

I'm 'early elderly'..and I'm trying to keep it that way...

[144man]

Exercising your mind on SDF will keep you young, but may give you a few grey hairs in the process.

[westgrandboulevard]

They were there when I started here. There's just less of them, now....

[Jerry Oz]

I'm three days overdue for a shave. The white hairs in my beard remind me why my wife prefers that I shave more frequently.

[westgrandboulevard]

One day, she may be in the position of growing her own....LOL

[Jerry Oz]

And I'll love every hair of it...

[westgrandboulevard]

..better not tell her to shave more frequently. May not go down too well....

[Jerry Oz]

Especially if she uses a straight razor...

[westgrandboulevard]

Women must find their bodies to be quite high maintenance....

They spend half their time trying to look their best,and the other half trying very hard not to look their worst....

[Jerry Oz]

And yet, the sexiest of them are those who are pretty when it doesn't seem that they're trying to be. I read where English women spend more time and money on makeup than women in other countries. That's so unfortunate because I find confidence much more attractive than painting your face it revealing your body. I guess I'm in the minority, though.

[westgrandboulevard]

Not to sound disparaging but, if English women do indeed spend more time and money on makeup than women in other countries, it isn't so obvious.

Perhaps that is because the makeup is very inobtrusive, and 'natural'.....

[Jerry Oz]

I prefer it that way. They have ultra-bright colored eye shadow and extra long eyelashes over here now. They also have blue and bright pink lipstick. It's horrible to look at, but the chickies seem to think men like it. I'm convinced that most do not. I prefer people present themselves as they are, without surgical augmentation or extra amounts of paint.

[westgrandboulevard]

My feeling is that makeup should be subtle, to enhance the good features [[every face has at least one), and downplay or disguise other features.

Simply making a statement with unnatural colours shouts "look at me"....

[Jerry Oz]

Like fake boobies, hair that's dyed in unnatural colors, and those misshapened high cheekbones that come along with steroid use and 20 hour days in the gym...

[westgrandboulevard]

Can high cheekbones really be achieved by workouts in the gym?

[Jerry Oz]

Can high cheekbones really be achieved by workouts in the gym?

I changed "stupid" to "steroid" in that post. My stoopid tablet autofilled the wrong word... [[now changed...)

Actually, I was referring to those ridiculously muscled body builders who don't seem to care that their use of steroids to gain a competitive advantage is obvious. Human evolution and training techniques have not advanced that far since the days of Jack LaLanne and Vic Tanny.

[westgrandboulevard]

I've just been given an iPad.....I've not really worked much on it yet, but I already feel it may have a mind of its own.

Those bodybuilders, of both sexes, work their way from fit and toned, through extreme and all the way to grotesque.

[144man]

You too can have a body like mine.....if you're not careful.

[westgrandboulevard]

You are what you eat......so I'll just have to use my imagination....

[Jerry Oz]

I can't be what I eat. I haven't had cottage cheese or muffin tops in years...

[westgrandboulevard]

OK. Then how about jelly.....?!

[Jerry Oz]

I had jelly yesterday. But I don't eat meat anymore, so I haven't had a Whopper in over a year, either. So why is one looking back at me from the mirror?

[westgrandboulevard]

The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come?

[Jerry Oz]

Actually, the Ghost of Christmas Past. I leveled off in the past year and weigh ~160 pounds [[from a high of 200) early in 2013. I can obtain my ideal weight of 145-150 if I get off my butt and do something aerobic instead of lying around considering it all day. I'm glad to say that I've avoided gaining weight since quitting the job over a month ago.

[westgrandboulevard]

I'm 11 stone, so I make that 154 pounds, and I'm 5' 8". I reckon I'm 3 or 4 pounds over my ideal. It went up over the last autumn/winter. Hasn't gone up any more,but hasn't reduced, either. I shall have to set myself a diet.....

[Jerry Oz]

Now, I am depressed. You're two inches taller, yet 4-6 pounds lighter than I am. That'll get me to start working out.

As soon as dinner settles. I'm having fish 'n chips from the Old Bag of Nails in an hour or so...

[westgrandboulevard]

Oh yes, you said you were going to the Old Bag of Nails a couple of weeks back, to report back on the fish and chips. Nothing heard yet....

Have you seen the 'Nation's Favourite Motown song' programme where Martha recalls encountering fish and chips in the UK - ?

On the subject of weight, I may be a little taller [[although I'd say we are both in the 'compact' category) but I am slightly built. Smallish chest, little wrist and shoulder bones..so that needs to be taken into account.

You put your photo on the 'Let it snow' thread a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure how to post one of me on SDF without a little thought but, if you've a mind to do it sometime, send me your email address by PM. I have one taken of me last autumn at an exhibition of my family's furnishings business, which I can send, when I find it.....

[Jerry Oz]

LOL! That was a photo of Denzel Washington, of whom any completely blind man would tell you is my identical twin. Anybody with even blurry vision would tell me that I'm crazy to suggest a resemblance, however... I'm actually about 5'6" and in reasonably decent shape right now. I lost weight when I stopped eating farmed animals, but I plateaued about eight months ago. To truly get into good shape, I'll have to start sweating and lifting weights. I started with the weights last week, by the way.

Oh, and the food was delicious. They have me three very large portions of fish and the meal stuffed me for most of the day. I also had some battered fried shrimp that was muy bueno.. I don't eat out very often, being can enough to prefer my own cooking, but I really appreciate it when the occasional restaurant meal turns out well.

[westgrandboulevard]

Aha! A ruse....

Didn't recognise him...although you wouldn't have got it past me wth Morgan Freeman...

[Jerry Oz]

To a deaf man, I sound just like Morgan Freeman...

[westgrandboulevard]

Best concentrate on just being you. Same goes for all of us, as time starts to seem shorter with the years....

[Jerry Oz]

I'm trying not to consider that even if I last 100 years, I'm already on the downward side of the mountain. I'm cool with being me.

[westgrandboulevard]

We're often told to make the best of each day.

Certainly, I often have to stop and remind myself that this could be as good as it gets.

It's supposed to make me feel cheerful and grateful.....but it does tend also to lead to a
feeling of anxiety...!

[Jerry Oz]

Don't be anxious. Just realize what is good right now and remember what you've overcome to get here. I often think back to my "glory days" and wonder why I didn't do more to memorialize them so that I could appreciate them even more now. That leads me to pay closer attention to what's happening now and subsequently, I'm aware of my glory days now as I'm living them. There's so much that could be worse, so just waking up is something that for which I am truly grateful at least once per day. The second best thing is making it to the end of the day.

[westgrandboulevard]

My biggest challenge each day is weaving all the good things I find, into some sort of order.

Otherwise, it all becomes somewhat....random...LOL