RSVP...

Does it stand for something other than répondez s'il vous plaît ? (Source: Encarta ). Or in plain English; Please let me know if you can come... ?

I recently sent out some invitations for a child's party with an RSVP to with a date by. The date given was a week before. I still have not heard from some invitees and have heard from one today, two days before the party.

Is RSVP redundant these days? Is it no longer a respected social grace? As an organiser of an imminent event I am mourning its passing.

Do you RSVP when asked to?  Why or why not?

Does it now stand for Really Slow Verification Protocol? 

I think Kell that's why door prizes were invented... .......you know.. rsvp for your chance to win blah blah on the day..

I usually don't respond unless there is free stuff, like beer.

You would think though, with all the communications methods available these days it would be a lot easier for ppl to do...

Is there beer or not?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Beer? No. I have provided alcohol once before but I has so many surprised looks when I offered it that I have decided to just go with sofites and tea and cofee. It starts at 10.30am on Sunday so it's probably not a necessary menu item... I'm sure I am now down as the slightly loose cannon mummy.

I guess I could try boiling the coctaail frankfurters in beer/water mix. It might make the party even more raucous... 

 You would think though, with all the communications methods available these days it would be a lot easier for ppl to do...

Well, yes. And there is the minor detail of having enough lolly bags for all the screaming kiddies as well as enough Pass the Parcel prizes to go around, Treasure Hunt loot to be found. Oh god. I am getting stressed just thinking about it! Can you imagine lil' Johnny who after two hours has not found any treasure and has missed out on a game prize? Then go on to imagine the wrath of mum when she arrives to pick up an elated child on a sugar high only to find her little man devastated and in tears and vowing never to return to Oliver's house? Do you now understand the horror I face and the importance of an RSVP to a child's party??!!

employ a bouncer... that way you can turn the kids away at the door to prevent cases of no-lolly bags...
-or-
just before the kid goes home line up 5 shots of neat red cordial. muhahahaaa!!

wait... just give Eric $100 to take all the kids to the Pub

$100?  That will just cover my tab.  What will the kids drink?

 wait... just give Eric $100 to take all the kids to the Pub

Better dust off those juggling balls and red nose... 

 .. and the beer thing...

Beer on a cold morning?... I can't think of anything more unappealing actually..

Beer on cornflakes is the breakfast of champions!

Oh. God. What's your life expectancy??!!

Beer on conflakes is probably better than what I used to have.... a smoke and a coke...

Yes. I used to start the day with a ciggy too and a strong coffee. Now I just have the coffee...

hahahahahah This is one of the funniest topics I've read in a long time!

Re RSVPs.....

I think that it's good manners to respond and inform the person if you'll be attending or not regardless of whether they put 'RSVP' at the end of the invite.
Planners need to know these things.... as evidenced by Kasta's post...

Also, it's also mandatory that you inform the planner/inviter if your own plans have changed.... I remember my sis and I once planned a BBQ for 15-20 ppl, and we decided to go all out and got a feast ready, and 1.... yes ONE person showed up.

heheheheh

I love all these beer pics you post Erik!

That's why you have beer Dek... then if no-one shows you can drink yourself merry!

Sure could do with some right now

It is Friday after all... get yourself down to the bottl-o!

How's this for a bad no-show story.

We had a NYE party one year. I invited a large group of people. So did Phil. A large number of his group showed up and only one of mine - AND - it was the father of one of the friends - not the friend - but the father of the friend. To this day I have no idea why he came. He bought his king browns and sat quietly in his chair for most of the evening. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

What?!?!?!

OMG!! I wanted to say something in response to something but now I'm laughing so hard at this topic that I forgot!!!

This further confirms my social outcast standing!!

Huh? How?

None of my friends came Dek....

Awwwwww

employ a bouncer... that way you can turn the kids away at the door to prevent cases of no-lolly bags...

I'll gladly be a bouncer to an event like this!!!! *evil smirk* 

and kasta...i'm so sorry abt the father of the friend story.but i'm curious...what the hell did he do when it was just him around with just u guys? awkward silence? *suppressing laughter*

Well. He is and always was a man of few words. Growing up I remember going to Elaine's and there would be her dad, in his chair, quietly drinking his Emu Export king browns. We never heard a word once he had said "hello".

I think he quite enjoyed himself because we lived in an old farmhouse next to the bush and had set up a projector with movies. He just ate the food, watched a few movies, probably wondered what we were all on, and then quietly left at around 1am, a little surprised that no-one he knew showed up!

I should add that we lived a way out of the city and would have been competing with lots of other parties, much closer to people's homes. And it was 1996 or something so a long while ago.

I think I may be over it - the disappointment, heartbreak....! 

Some Emu Export would taste good about now.

I'd need mine heated up.It's freezin' here today...

Better make mine an ale, flat and warm.. 

My favourite winter beer is Sheaf Stout.  It's like Guiness, but with coffee grounds and cigarette butts added to it.  The flavour really warms you up!  Dan Murphy's has it.  I gotta get some as I'm back on the 16th.  Hope it's sunny when I arive or shaking off the jet lag will take longer.  I hate winter.

And it's only just begun. Yuk.

I'm not looking forward to coming back to freeze.  The pictures of the floods are quite shocking.  I was supposed to fly out last week, but had to push it out till this week.  I'll be freezing in Hornsby by next Saturday.

It was quite terrible. The pics of the tanker beached at Nobby's are incredible. And it was very sad to hear about the people who had died.

A mum friend had some nieces stay at the weekend - both from Newcastle - while their parents cleaned up and waited for the power to come back on 

It's 27 in my house in California today.  Summer has arrived! Only for me to leave....   Boo Hoo!

Phil is in Californ-I-A the lucky booger. Although he is working so is probably in a fluor-lit office somewhere looking at the sun outside!

Even hotter today.  Looks like 30's most places.  Rain forecast for Saturday in Sydney.  I hate switching hemispheres at the extremes-summer to winter-as it's really hard to shake off jet lag when the sun is so low on the horizon.

Yeah, I feel that too

Heard it may hail tommorrow.  Ugh.  Fortunately I have some Peets Coffee beans in my luggage. 

It hailed last nite here... only small ones where I was tho. Still I went on high alert for an hour or two

Oh, and welcome back to crap weather....

Take a good long look at the sunshine before you come back.... I'm not sure when you'll see it again...

I had the fog lights on this morning - driving the kids to school and daycare!

I had to drop my neighbour's child off to school, and we had a good time pretending to be dragons!

How much fun is that?!

hehehe very!

He was just really flummoxed at first, when I showed him the 'smoke' coming out of my mouth, and shocked when it worked for him too, and then we just kept 'roaring'

I'll have to try that when Oliver is having a whinge. A good distraction technique!

Distraction technique no 265: Cover your face and start wailing. That throws em off

no 638: Play dead.... they might poke, prod, yell in your ears or try and open your eyelids, but stick to your guns.

no 927: Pretend to fall and fake a really bad injury (works with adults too)

I have tried one and two and look forward to trying three!

Get one of those fake dismembered thumbs at a gag shop.  Slam your car door really hard in the car park and scream, dropping the thumb to the ground.  A real crowd pleaser!

We have fake poo. And fake cockroaches. I could step on one of those items and let out a shriek!

I have real roaches in my house, under my lounge suite.  Would you like one?

Umm. No. Thanks anyway.....

Erik's not well today. I hope he's not been taken down by one of his roaches.

LOL!!

La cucaracha!

I just fried a roach in my microwave - it got in there cause my bro left the door open

anyways i fried it for 10 mins on high - to test theory that roaches will survive a nuclear detonation and radiation. 

before i pressed the start button - the pest was running around the plate in endless circles - once the microwave started - the roach stopped dead in it's tracks.

"WOOHOO! it's dead!!" I thought  - "i've found a new way to get rid of the irritating pests in my house."

I open the door at the end to see if it's really dead. 

poke it with a stick - it does not move.

I scoop it with a newspaper - still not movement.

Feeling triumphant, I am about to chuck it in the bin - when it moves!!!

then it starts walking very slowly and unsteadily along the newspaper.

i place paper on the floor - to see what happens next.

Roach moves - then stops - every time it moves, it's unsteady - like it's drunk 

5 mins later it's scurried off!!! back to it's insane irritating self - like nothing happened!!

i was too intrigued to even roll up another stack of newspaper and whack it should it make the great escape!!! 

have to go back to smacking the damn things with newspaper again!!! SIGH!!!

That's scary and funny at the same time Aman! And a wee bit freaky to even think of doing such a thing.

You know, if you microwave them, they make a great 'bacon bits" subsititute without the fat and cholesterol.

be carefull... the spikes on the legs can catch in your throat.. and the wings get stuck in your teeth like popcorn husk.

the gullet juice in the abdomen is delicious though....

I've been told I used to eat roaches when I was young....

I must have been a cat in me past life

and a freak in this one... lol...sorry

hehehe No need to apologise for being right

I've been told I used to eat roaches when I was young....

I must have been a cat in me past life

My youngest was partial to cat food in an earlier period of his short life. NUMEROUS times I caught him chomping away at the cat bowl! 

Oh dear!!! hahahaha

then again, I suppose all biscuits look tempting when you're young!

Anyone here read Kafka?

I remember reading one of his books.... tho now I can't recall anything abt it

Why? Did he eat roaches?

Read the Metamorphosis.  About a guy who wakes up one morning as a cockroach.

Gregor Samsa awakes one morning in his family's apartment to find himself transformed overnight into a gigantic insect. Gregor does not immediately recoil from his insectile form, but instead chooses to lament the rain and general misery of the weather outside. Indeed, the narrative establishes the poor conditions as the cause of his bed-ridden state. Gregor works as a traveling salesman, and, as it is usual for traveling salesmen to move constantly from place to place, he is accustomed to waking up in unfamiliar surroundings and various circumstances. As Kafka writes in The Trial, “Waking up is the riskiest moment of the day” in that one takes it for granted that one's surroundings will be the same as when one went to sleep. But what if things change? Gregor awoke from “unsettling dreams.” This furthers the possibility that the circumstances of his mental (and physical) reality changed during sleep.

I had a looong discussion about that once.... started from euthanasia, moved to consciousness somewhere in between, and then mental states in sleep.
(as with most of my discussions, I can't remember the specifics..... I really should start walking around with a recorder)

I read it at uni and I didn't really like it. I did not understand why it was part of the literary canon!

Kafka's "Vor dem Gesetz" (Before the law) is actually better, and deals with man's powerlessness when confronted with a faceless bureaucracy.  It's a great read.

Aman. Your experiment. Quite extraordinary. I am almost bowled over. Could you continue? Conduct a controlled experiment? Cook some more? See whether they are all as hardy? Further let us know what the terminal period might be before they really do expire?

(PS. I am not sure I should pass this on. But when you're done, your sister suggest's you conduct the same experiment with one of your cats). 

kekeke

BTW aman, Alex is being completely serious..... he's really intrigued, and really wants to know more about nuking cockroaches....

You should have seen the look of amazement on his face when he was reading your post

Higher echelons beckon now Aman!

ALEX.... I shall endeavour to lure another stupid cockroach/s in the microwave and fry them - but I'm not about to go around catching them to conduct my experiment!!

First though - I'll need to get a proper microwave as ours if more than 15 years old and is practically falling apart. I do believe that the little bugger got away cause of faulty machinery and not it's hardiness.

When I do get a proper microwave Alex, you're more than welcome to conduct the experiment yourself.

JUST LEAVE THE CATS ALONE!!!

They are extremely  useful in reducing the roach population.

now I'm reminded about the unsteady movement of that little pest - just for that entertainment -- I'm fairly motivated to get a new microwave!

The next time I'm taking a video of a cockroach walking drunk....................wonder if it'll make it into World's Funniest Animals.

You never know Aman!

Aman you're not alone. A 2-second search uncovered this thread:

How come roaches don't get zapped in the microwave oven?

Message:

There were roaches in some dry dog food that I put in the microwave. I turned 
it on full power but the roaches just kept running around. It didn't phase 
them. I thought they would explode like an egg.

Message:


Suzann,

Roaches are, in fact, very difficult to kill with any sort of radiation. I 
found a brief discussion of the effects of radiation presented by my 
estimable Mad Scientist colleague Andrew Karam at 
 http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/feb99/919916346.Gb.r.html

Microwave radiation's effect on roaches is less examined than "hard" 
radiation like gamma or alpha rays, and there isn't much information 
available. However, I did find some informal discussion of roaches and 
microwaves in the archives of The Straight Dope at 
 http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_025.html


and the alumnus research pages at CalTech at 
 http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~maronj/text/roach.html.

I hope that you find these informative and entertaining! 

This is funny...

(4) What you took to be evidence that the cockroach was still alive was really its death throes. Permanent nerve damage generally results early on in tests of this nature. If you had administered an IQ test to the cockroach at the three-minute mark possibly you would have discovered that it had been reduced to imbecility.

And this...

Finally, lads, while one appreciates your efforts, I feel compelled to point out that using a 1,000-watt microwave to snuff bugs is a bit . . . Vietnamesque, if you take my meaning. What's wrong with a good shot to the exoskeleton with a shoe?

And a straight answer too...

(5) Seriously (well, as seriously as you can get under the circumstances), it's generally agreed that microwave energy interacts most strongly with water. The best candidate for microwaving is something that's uniformly moist. Cockroaches contain very little moisture--OK, very little of anything--and their external body parts are quite dry, making them less susceptible to microwaves. They do contain some moisture, of course, but given their small size and the unevenness of microwave radiation already alluded to, they can simply dodge bullets for a time.

HAHAHAHA Funny stuff!

What if you soak them on water first?  Will this improve results?  Please try it and report back to us.

Add a steam/shower function in microwaves.... like in irons

That should do it

Read in one of those alarming books about incarceration in a Thai jail, that a rice only diet when you're in a blacked-out punishment cell 24/7 can be supplemented by local protein. Basically you catch cockroaches, build a small pen in a gap in the stone floor or some such place, feed said roaches some of your rice and voila sometime later you have fattened protein-rich cockroach. [Not sure where this is going, so shall sign off].

BLYUCK!!!!! That's just a freaky story Alex - I never want to read that book!!

If I ever catch a roach to fry in the microwave - I'm putting it in a cup of water first. 

Still prefer smashing them with a rolled up newspaper - smashing them with a shoe is too messy!!! 

I really can't seem to stomach touching a cockroach anymore.

As a kid - I use to catch them by the feelers and scare my sis (years later my bro) with them.

I think i've desensitised  my brother now - he's not that scared anymore. I take pride in toughing him up for the army!!!

Good to know in case I go to Bali any time soon.

Good to know Erik that you'll be able to supplement your diet or good to know so Aman's brother can come and rescue you?

ROFL!!!!!!!

HEHEHEHEHEHE!!!