Charles' dad died on Tuesday.

I'll always be disappointed that I didn't meet him.  Anyone who's ever chatted with Charles about them (or just met Charles and extrapolated) knows that his family is topful of interesting characters, and it seems his dad firmly represented. 

Admitted to the Order of Canada, he was born in Pakistan, met his wife in Greece and ended up President of the University of Prince Edward Island.  He is described in his obit as "a classicist, an historian, an archeologist, a philhellene, a teacher, a university administrator, and a tireless champion for Maritime heritage preservation", but I love the comment "To call him eccentric would be understating the case".

We should all be remembered so well.

When I got my new Aussie passport, I bitched and moaned about the fancy RFID chip.  I lamented my compromised security and bought it (though not me, strangely) a tin foil hat.  I shut up after the first time I swanned through Immigration in Sydney in about three minutes.

Similarly, I would mildly grumble to myself about living in a Schengen country and the barrenness of the pages of that fancy passport.  It's not brag-worthy! 

This week has been my Sydney Immigration Line Moment about open borders.

So I'm doing a grand Baltic tour next month and need a visa to go to St Petersburg.  The Russians don't make this easy.  You have to be issued an invitation, write a letter, fill in a form, provide proof of medical insurance.  It's not fun.  Then you have to give all this over to the Russkies for them to ponder for two weeks while they decide if they're going to let you have four days in their country spending money.

The two weeks requirement was about the sixth problem encountered.  With all these public holidays, and my common weekend pastime, it was a bit tough to find a 10 business day period when I could do without my passport.  Things got timed a little fine.

About the twelfth problem encountered is that the Russian consulate in Copenhagen doesn't accept visa applications by mail.  You have to go there in person. This isn't such a big deal for me, it's a vague detour from my morning commute. (It's rather close to Dennis' place, actually.  I guess it really is Embassy Row.)  Rather a bigger deal if you live in Jylland.

Problem eighteen is that they only have limited consulate hours.  On Tuesday, I rocked up about an hour before they were due to close (which is at the grand old time of 11:30am), forms in hand, all ready to do my in-person equivalent of a mail drop.  I waited.  And waited.  I didn't even get off the footpath and into the driveway.

And so I learned my lesson.

On Wednesday, my progress was much better.  I arrived half an hour before they opened, waited for three hours, and made it so far that I got to be the first person that they turned away when they shut up for the day.   The guy from Jylland behind me had to change his flight and book a room.

And so I learned my lesson.

Today, I turned up an hour and a half before they opened.  The coffee cart driver who comes by the queue now considers me a regular.  After spending a cumulative total of seven hours waiting, they let me in the door, I dropped off my papers, paid my cash, and left.  It would have been less than seven minutes.

And I get to go back again and line up to pick it up!

Meanwhile, Yammy has been gloating about receiving his visa already.  He just chucked all his stuff into the mail, made a few pointed remarks about being their Slavic comrade, and called it done.

I tend to think that Britain and its former Colonial peons may have cornered the market on particularly colourful and evocative phrasing; the first time ex-Oz that I used "gives me the shits" to describe something annoying taught me not everything translates.  I've recently learned a picturesque Canadian phrase (thanks Bridget) that apparently means to slack off or to do no work, and I'm pleased to be able to use it so promptly and aptly before I forget it.  (My mother adopted a similar approach upon learning "mofo" from me.)  So:

At work recently we've been talking about situations where it seems that marketing or branding folk may have been fucking the dog.

There. That said, I can now move on to my story:

It started with Stuart's parents bringing him a packet of The Gayest Biscuits Ever (TM Nick), Iced VoVos.  He noticed that their tag is "Sweet and Interesting".  Sweet.  And interesting.  Accurate, yes, but hardly inspiring.

I then discovered that the advertising tag for Dunlop Volleys (which I have a sudden and nostalgic hankering for) is "exceptionally average".

This all may be topped by seeing an ad for a Nivea product called "Light Feeling Sun Lotion".  This immediately reads like a clunky translation, but I'm still wanting to buy sunscreen that promises to just grope me mildly.

I played Wii Bowling and Wii Boxing.

My complete domination of Wii Bowling and the six or seven strikes or spares in a row in my very first game was almost enough to cleanse my mind of that time I played in real life, and only escaped with a non-zero score because once the ball somehow bounced back out of the gutter.

Boxing was different.  Much fun, especially with my mean little glasses-wearing Mii getting all punchy, but I was a bit less good at it.  I lost.

And I'm pretty much on board with Gabe on the exertion thing.

Nevertheless, I want a Wii.