myBBCplayer

I don't know how I missed this news release from last weekend, but when I saw it today, I just had to blog it. Reuters says:

"[The BBC,] the publicly-funded broadcaster is testing software called MyBBCPlayer to let users download its TV and radio programing, and plans to use its powerful presence to take its place among Internet media giants like Google and Yahoo."

According to this article and others, the BBC will launch the service to allow subscribers to download current audio and video broadcasts to their computers, PDAs, PMPs and mobile phones. Presumably this will be a free service (at least for UK residents). There is evidence to show that there is a significant amount of demand that the BBC website has experienced with regard to downloading media. There was their experiment with offering 9 of Beethoven's symphonies for a period of a week. During that time there were 1.4 million downloads. Similarly, following the London bombings, there were a whopping 60 million requests for their archived video footage.

This is an organisation that really understands how to meld together old and new media. They were among the first to offer RSS feeds of their news articles, among the first mainstream media to offer podcasts of selected programming. As a highly respected news outlet, they will be ideally placed to satisfy the great demand for fresh programming, news or otherwise, with their renowned selection of news programmes, documentaries, sitcoms and comedies.

It's not hard to envision a point a few months from now, when you can wake up in the morning, sync your video iPod (coming soon!) or your Zen Vision with all the audio and video feeds that your PC has been collecting overnight, run for your train and watch the hour old news on your handheld. Or catch the latest episode of 'Doctor Who' or 'Titty Bang Bang' (ahem!).

What's more interesting is that they also plan to start offering paid downloads of popular music via the BBC site, a la Yahoo! Music and iTMS. UK media companies have cried foul over this aspect of the strategy, claiming that the BBC with its immense 3 billion pound public funding and reach will unfairly encroach on the private sector. This is certainly a fair point. But it may only be valid until 2012.

The BBC's loss of market share to multi-channel television and new digital radio stations has provided fuel to those who want its public funding to be cut or shared with other broadcasters. It has to cope with the real possibility that its public funding (from "TV Licenses") will be trimmed or removed entirely following a review in 2012, and that it will have to rely on money from (horrors!) commercial advertising and other sources.

It's against this backdrop that this move from the Beeb makes sense. Paid downloads of content licensed from other providers as well as a combination of free and paid downloads of its own content will represent a new source of revenue that it can use to offset any loss in income from licensing, thus transforming it to a rather strange creature, answering both to its political masters and the paying public. It could also silence the segments of the British public that resent subsidising the cost of providing news to the rest of the world.

It can be argued that the BBC may eventually restrict its content from those outside the UK by a payment model, a move that will undeniably upset many and eventually diminish the international reach of the respected broadcaster. The effect on the quality and political tilt of its programming, given its changed priorities, will be tougher to predict.

But for heaven's sake, "myBBCplayer"? Couldn't they have picked a better name? The "my" prefix is so 1999...

Back from Mumbai

Mumbai is an amazing city, and I'm ashamed I haven't known it better. For 15 years, I stayed not 200 kilometres away, and over the 29 years of my life I must have visited it 20-30 times. But this trip was the first time I felt the pulse of the city. A pulse that races along at double-speed, threatening to leave behind anyone who can't keep up with its pace.

So many interesting experiences this time.

Mumbai suffered the brunt of the devastating floods that hit Maharashtra state in July this year. Over 3 to 4 days, hundreds of people died, there was millions of rupees worth of damage to property, and people's lives and livelihoods were affected. And all this happened 3 weeks prior to my trip there (and inspired much 'mirth' in the office).

But stepping into Mumbai in August 2005 is like stepping into Mumbai in August 2004. There is no evidence of the floods: the same sights, the same smells, the same sounds and the same feeling of being back in the most exciting city in the world. Streets were crowded, road side vendors selling 'paan' (betel leaf based mouth freshener) and pav vadas (something like a potato burger) and ganna (sugar cane juice), kids playing cricket, the innumerable cars and buses and people filling the streets and coalescing into one being.

This time around I managed to re-connect with a few people I knew, and I got from each of them their stories of how they coped in the floods.

Stories like how families on upper floors of buildings graciously welcomed strangers into their homes, fed them and cared for them for 2 nights, or how young poverty-ridden boys took it upon themselves to help the rich car owners back home by stopping them in the middle of the road to give them directions on the best (least flooded) route home, or how random people walked around giving food packets (prepared at home) to the cold, wet and stranded.

I heard how my cousin (and countless others), stranded miles away from home, had to walk through chest high water for hours on end to reach home. Water that literally had unmentionable things floating in them. And how my grandma, stranded alone at home with no running water and no electricity, decided to spend that evening and the next day gossiping with the neighbours, trying not to worry about her daughter, grand-daughter, grand-daughter-in-law and great grandson.

Mumbai 2005 gave us no shortage of stories to bandy about, each of them simultaneously heart warming, enthralling and inspiring. I raise my hat to all of you.

This time in Mumbai, we finished our work fairly quickly - what was originally planned to be 3 days got reduced to a day and a half. Not due to any efficiency on our part - it was more due to us getting to exasperated with the proceedings that we strangled all the decisions we needed out of our bosses there. That's a pretty good way to work I think.

So on Tuesday afternoon, I returned to the hotel at 2 pm, and after a quick visit to my airline office to change my ticket, found myself back on the mean streets, armed with a small amount of cash I had had the presence of mind to change, and a shopping list from the wife.

The shopping list:
1. Real Paan
2. Dry Bhel Puri and other snacks
3. Amitabh Bachchan DVDs (3 in 1)

Having already made discreet enquiries, I knew where to get the DVDs. Well roughly where. Walking around the Fountain area, I came across tens of vendors selling brand new bestsellers (and not so new potboilers) on the pavement. With prices ranging from Rs. 10 (S$ 0.40) to Rs. 200 (S$ 8.00), it was a fraction of the prices back here. However, my objective was still the DVDs. I asked around, and was finally directed to a by lane at the back, where there were a couple of vendors selling "Visual Basic 5" and "1001 Free Fonts". With not much hope left, I asked one of these guys (whom I will call Ram), and he looked around discreetly and pulled me along to a tiny shop about 20m further down. Ram then pulled down a black plastic bag and showed me at least 100 DVDs, each loaded with between 2 and 4 bollywood films. 10 minutes of browsing yielded good results (4 DVDs with 12 movies), and after a spot of bargaining (I reduced the total price from Rs. 720 to Rs. 600) I was done.

It was then that Ram pulled me towards him and whispered in my ear, "Aapko triple chahiye?". I gently disengaged myself from his clutch, smiled back at him, said "Nahi!", and walked back with a slightly more than gentle pace.

A safe distance away, and clutching my own tiny black plastic bag, I chanced upon an ancient looking man sitting on the pavement with his magic 'paan' kit arrayed before him. I have this theory that for good 'paan', one must always buy from old Muslims, and this gentleman (Iqbal) met both criteria. The only problem in communicating with him was that he was hard of hearing (and a little senile), he only spoke Urdu, and my realisation that there is a lot of 'paan' jargon. Still, with the help of one of his side kicks, I managed to convey that I wanted 10 sweet paans to take overseas. I chose Banarasi 'paans' over Calcutta 'paans' after some careful consideration. My only reason for that was that B comes before C.

Watching him make the paans was an exercise in patience, and watching him gave me a strange sense of peace. It was obvious that this old man enjoyed his art and the amount of care and love (yes, love) that he put into it was charming. Ten minutes later, and Rs 50 lighter, I carried a small bag of 10 'paans' back to the hotel and straight into the fridge.

Part 2 soon.

A Long Hiatus

I have some faithful readers, one of whom checks my blog everyday. It's indeed very flattering to have anyone visit your blog out of anything less than familial obligations or out of compulsion by me; so when I come across ardent followers, I take their feedback seriously.

And thus spake they last night:

"K, you haven't blogged since you left for your India trip. What's up with that? Don't you know we check your blog everyday hoping for a new pearl of wisdom, a new perspective, a new slice of the lemon that life is handing you?"

It touched a chord within my heart. I felt I had let them down.

Dear readers, I thank you for your patronage. Regular service will be resumed shortly.

Enough with the swimming jokes already!

I'm off to Mumbai this Sunday for 4 days. It's a business trip and I'll be accompanied by 3 of my Singaporean colleagues.

For one of them, it's her first trip to India, and like most Singaporeans, she is naturally paranoid - "Can I drink the water there? Can I get a taxi easily? Will it be dirty? Will the food be ok?" and the like. This I can forgive - it's a fairly common reaction, when you're from squeaky clean Singapore and your only impression of India is from what you see in the news and on programmes like "The Amazing Race".

What I can't stand is people (like one other person on my team) who visit India at least once every 2 months, and go around making jokes on needing a raft there or learning to swim or carrying a big umbrella (all in light of the recent floods). Once is ok for a laugh. But doing it again and again grates on you.

It is especially insensitive and stupid when you do it in a meeting with me (an Indian) present and expect me to laugh along. It borders on ridiculous when you walk up to my cubicle, grin ear-to-ear and ask me if I need a life jacket, and patronisingly advise me not to drink the water there.

Granted, India has a long way to go in cleanliness (and that's putting it lightly), granted even that dozens of people have died in the past few days from leptospirosis (the mini-epidemic is now in its decline). But for heaven's sakes read the news, you people! The floods are over. The city is back to normal. The clean foreigner-friendly 5-star hotels you will be staying in will do all they can to make sure you're safe - and as their customer service is far better than in Singapore, you will be well taken care of. You don't eat street food here anyway, and you drink out of sealed bottles, so what's going to happen?

I mean no disrespect to the dead, and my heart goes out to their families, but put the damn thing in perspective - 200 people out of a city of 12 million - and GROW UP. And these people who died were from the slum areas.

Sorry, I just had to let it out. Bad day today.

I heart Lucy Kellaway

Sometime ago, I used to subscribe to the Financial Times. There were three reasons for this:

1. I could avail of a student discount which, at 44 cents a day, made the FT cheaper than the Straits Times. (And with 10 times as much content as the ST.)
2. Reading the FT made me feel important and accomplished. (Though I quickly realised that, at $4 per day, the real price of the FT after my student discount ended outweighed my self-esteem.)
3. It had some seriously delightful (and some delightfully serious) articles and supplements: How to Spend It, Martin Lukes and Lucy Kellaway.

Now that I'm no longer a student, I've stopped receiving the FT. And I miss it. I miss reading about yachts that cost a million pounds, and diamonds baubles that cost half as much, and flimsy women's clothing that cost hundreds of pounds (if not thousands), and I miss laughing at them.

But most of all I miss Lucy Kellaway. For those not in the know, Lucy Kellaway is the FT’s management columnist. I've followed her weekly Monday column as it poked fun at management fads and jargon and celebrated the ups and downs of office life. Consider her take on the recent fad of 'corporate story-telling':

"When I first came across the corporate storytelling craze about six or seven years ago, I thought it was a joke. (Which, on second thoughts, doesn't set it apart from other management trends. I also suspected knowledge management was a joke, and total quality management, too. I'm sure I would also have thought six sigma funny if I had ever had the first idea of what it actually was.)"

I missed reading Lucy, and her columns on the FT online are subscription-protected (boo!). I missed her so much, that this week I called the FT and enquired about subcription rates. $550 per year meant the rates had come down to about $2 per day, but I was still reluctant to spend so much money so fast.

So I set about searching for any of her articles that may have made it into the non-protected online wilderness. So I Googled "Lucy Kellaway" column and was greeted by a surprisingly large number of articles republished (and in some cases, rebutted) elsewhere.

Encouraged I had another brainwave. Realising that my company has a corporate subscription to Lexis Nexis, I searched that database for articles by Lucy K. And I am happy to announce that I now have a file that contains all of Lucy's articles in 2005. That should keep me occupied for the next few days. After that I'll download some more and be occupied for a few more weeks.

But eventually I'll probably give in and get the newspaper after all. There's a certain charm to opening a fresh paper in the morning, folding it to page 9, and reading it on the morning bus to work. I may even read something useful that way.

I'll leave you with another snippet from May this year with reference to a column in the Harvard Business Review bemoaning the dumbing down of management.

"This article complains that employees are being treated like infants and it is time to treat them like grown-ups.

My analysis of what has gone wrong with management is just the reverse. There has been a mighty dumbing up of management and management thought in recent years. The simple and impressionistic is made into the complex and scientific. It has resulted in the most elaborate time-wasting nonsense. And to the extent to which employees are being treated like children, I can't see anything wrong with that. In my experience, children have very little patience with doing anything at all unless they can see a clear purpose."

And finally her hilarious deconstruction of Accenture's 2002 Annual Report. On the word 'Deliver':

This verb is straight in at number one. If you think "delivery" is something that involves a truck, and which Ikea charges for, you are sadly out of date. Accenture delivers all manner of things, none of which requires a truck or even a bicycle. "Innovation Delivered," it says on the cover, which sounds splendid and is ambiguous enough to be unchallengeable.

Inside, there are five D-words in one short paragraph. Under the heading "Global Strategic Delivery Approach," we learn that "the ultimate goal is to deliver price competitive solutions." This is done through "a global network of delivery centres," which "enhance the ability to deliver results." This sounds a bit circular—but maybe that's the point.

There are also more advanced grammatical forms—deliverables, and delivering on something. The grocery van delivers on Tuesday; Accenture "delivers on great ideas."

Sniff Sniff

It was 10:10 pm. Sa and I were sitting across from each other at a table, with tears in our eyes, sniffling and struggling to control ourselves.

No we weren't fighting.

It was all because of the Hatyai Devil Chilli Chicken - one of the spiciest and tastiest Thai dishes we've eaten - at Nid's place. A green gravy with pieces of chicken floating in it garnished with red chili padi (a small but powerful chili pepper), it was a dish we ordered very ambitiously (with a touch of foolhardiness) along with some garlic baby kailan (fear not, they're just greens) and rice. As soon as it landed on our table, I took a sip of the gravy from the tip of my spoon, and immediately reached for my lime juice.

In a mirror image of my move, Sa reached for her glass of iced green tea; and for the next twenty minutes, we laboured our way through the dinner, the food getting less spicier along the way, and a lot tastier, and going down easier. Of course, the cold drinks did help soothe the tongue :)

We rolled out of the restaurant happy and sated. Final bew: $24.50.

We're discovering new food options near our place, after bumping into a foodie friend who helped give us recommendations. Over the past week, we've had rice porridge (simple gruel) with veggies, interesting Cantonese food, and we've yet to try another Chinese restaurant nearby. Good recommendations, and a welcome change from our default haunts: Chutney Mary and Ganesh Vilas (the erstwhile Mantra Place).

Discovery's back home

Well back on Earth at least. Bad weather in Florida forced NASA to abandon Cape Kennedy (aka Cape Canaveral) as the landing site, and switch to Edwards AFB on the West Coast.



After 219 orbits around the Earth, Commander Eileen Collins piloted Discovery back on the ground. Actually, the auto-pilot piloted the spacecraft for the first part of the descent, but Cmdr Collins took over for the last 2, most crucial minutes. If you think landing a space shuttle is like landing an aircraft, look at this page. Well done, Cmdr Collins.

Now that Discovery has landed so far from home, what's next for the orbiter? Shuttle engineers will install a large cone on the tail that smooths the airflow around the orbiter while it is being carried on a 747. Yes, a special 747 aircraft will carry the shuttle back to Kennedy.


(image from http://www.air-and-space.com/Discovery%2020001030-1102.htm)

Have a safe trip home, Discovery.

How to fold a shirt

I came across this a few weeks ago, but felt compelled to search for it this morning, when Sa and I were folding the freshly washed laundry.

Presenting: How to cleanly fold a t-shirt in 3 seconds (yes really). The picture leads to a flash animation demonstrating this technique.



This is no trick - it really works. 'Readymade' has analysed it with scientists from MIT, no less, and ... it's legit. This is what happens when you fold it.



... from www.readymademag.com

Fashion faux-pas

An epidemic is sweeping through Singapore! We are under attack! Something has taken over the fashion sense of (otherwise well-dressed) Singaporean women!

Ok - I'm done with the alarmist exclamation marks, but I'm serious when I say that there is a new item of ladies' outerwear that has to be the fashion faux pas of the century (and we're just 5 years into it).

It's an outer-bra! It's a sweater! Behold the 'mini-cardigan'! (I came up with the name 'mini-cardigan' after careful research by me and Sa both showed that shop-owners don't know what this monstrosity is called).




This item of fashion indecision seems to have exploded onto the scene over the past few weeks, and I can't understand the point - do you wear it in case your breasts and arms (but not the rest of your upper body) feel cold? Or are you just not sure whether you need a sweater at all?

Ladies (those of you who read this), please take this as advice from a normal hot-blooded male. This piece of clothing does nothing to flatter you - neither your image, nor your taste.

All it does is to allow the makers of these cardigans hawk half the amount of processed wool / cotton for the same price or more, and double their profits.

But at least it's not this piece of fashion indecision.

I am such a space geek

I just spent half an hour watching Steve Robinson on STS-114 get maneuvered into place under the Discovery space shuttle orbiting 300 km above the Earth at 8 miles per second, and successfully remove 2 pieces of filler material that threatened to allow the shuttle to overheat during re-entry.

This was on Nasa TV, by the way, with live video and complete audio feed of all the conversation between the crew on the ISS, those on Discovery, the Capcom in Houston and of course, Steve the EVA-er.

It surprised everyone that it was so easy - it looked (and probably felt) like pulling out a name card from between 2 rubber bricks using his fingers. Here's a screenshot (I cheated a bit though). It shows Steve holding the second of the pieces of filler in his right hand during his 4 hr 41 minute spacewalk.


This set of EVAs was unique in the sense that Steve was held in place by the robotic arm on the ISS, rather than maneuvring himself using a Manned Maneuvering Unit. This made his moving into place a little more tiresome and slow, but was probably safer for all.

When I was a kid, I first read of EVA in a book called 'The Hamlyn book of "What do you know?"', an excellent and fat book, which made me the geek I am today. And what really fascinated me about EVA was how the spacewalker would move in space. They didn't have MMUs in those days; all they had was a longish rod with tiny thrusters at each end. Since there's no (or little) inertia in space, they'd fire short bursts on the rockets to change their momentum and thereby move themselves around.

Naturally, this was dangerous; a misfire would mean the astronaut (or cosmonaut!) could get pushed out of control until the end of his tether, and possibly severing his tether and his oxygen feed.

Leaving him quite dead quite soon, and orbiting the Earth as a permanent souvenir of this planet's thirst for adventure and exploration.

Back at office today

... and feeling much better, thank you.

I had better feel better, after a day and a half of these:



L-R: Paracetamol, Chlorpheniramine and Bromhexine

Art for sale

Gangezs, famous for its inexpensive all-you-can-eat 'fine dining' ($7.90++ for a week-day dinner), and vaguely Czech sounding name has recently started selling amateur artists' works.

Yes, I realise they're amateur artists, but someone has to have a lot of chutzpah for trying to sell this for $180:



Cheap frame from Ikea: $8.00
Black marker pen: $1.50
Talent: $0.50
Person who would buy this at that price: Senseless

Um - anyone care to tell me which deity that might be?

Lost - part deux

Someone at AXN clearly values my opinion on Lost... I discovered a large number of visitors referred here from AXN, and specifically this page. So whoever saw this, hello there!

And this is what I wrote.

I didn't manage to watch all 5 episodes (16 to 20) this last Saturday - I missed the first one. But to an engineer geek like me, episode 18 - Numbers - was amazing. Starting with Hurley winning a gruesome amount of money using the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42, and ending with a close up shot of the same mysterious numbers cut into the hatch that was discovered buried in the sand.

The symbolism of the numbers crops up again and again in the show; each of the numbers appears - in dates, flight numbers, times, gate numbers, license plates etc. And the fact that this was the sequence that was transmitted from the island 16 years ago (there's that number again!) and which drew Danielle Rousseau and her companions to the island only serves to add to the mystery.

And for more intrigue, visit Oceanic Air, and explore the site. Don't miss the numbers in the boxes at the bottom of the page. There's more info there than meets the eye...

If there's anything about the show that bugs me, it's the fact that they've raised so many questions (and continue to do so) and provide so few answers, as if they're setting themselves up for Season 2. Given the show's success in the US and its popularity around the world, I can see their point, but guys, would it hurt to at least tell us something?

Like - What is the monster/security device? What's in the hatch? Are there any more people on the island? Who spoke to Boone over the plane radio?

Please don't go the way of the X-Files, run circles around your audience for 5 years, and then let us down.

To leave you, here's a quote from Damon Lindelof (the show's co-creator):

I can say that there will be other mystery things arising that will make the 'monster' pale in comparison to what you're going to want to find out. We're still trying to be firmly ensconced in the world of science fact. I don't think we've shown anything on the show yet that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function in. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and being in a place where they probably shouldn't be, but nothing is flat out impossible. There are no spaceships, there isn't any time travel.

If that doesn't whet your appetite, I don't know what will.

Warning: Disgustingness lies ahead

So I've been coughing a bit, sore throat and 'viral infection' and all.

This morning, I had a pretty nasty coughing fit. I rushed to the bathroom and spat out the gob of phlegm into the toilet bowl. To my surprise I noticed that the phlegm floated on the water like a water lily.

This led to the question, is phlegm less dense than water? Google couldn't give me an answer, so I assume that no one has researched this topic.

Or it could just be that I have a phlegm-buoyant cough (rimshot!)

Don't say I didden warn you.

Doctor Wars

I've been down with a cough since Sunday, and on Monday afternoon, finally decided to visit the doctor.

So 2:30 pm, I walk down to the 12th floor of my office building, and after a 10 minute wait (which I spend reading the Feb 2000 issue of 'Stuff'), Dr. C. Lim decides I've waited enough, and calls me in. Note though, while I'm waiting, there's no other patient in the waiting room, and no one walks out of the doctor's room before she called me in. In other words, she was probably napping for a while.

But she looks fresh and alent enough though. And after a cursory examination, in which I end up diagnosing what I have (and she takes my temperature and fools around with the stethoscope), I get an MC and the following medicines:

• Augmentin (the inevitable antibiotic) 1 tab twice daily
  
• Cirrus capsule (for blocked/runny nose) 1 tab every morning
  
• Polarax (for what???) 1 tab every night
  
• Korzen (for phlegm) 2 tabs thrice daily
  
• Random cough medicine

I don't understand the Cirrus capsule though - it works for both runny as well as blocked noses? That's like an inverter? [Nose_condition = not (Nose_condition)]

Anyway, was back home early last evening - around 5 and took some rest. This morning too, I was feeling down and decided to take the day off again (the fact that I had a mid-year review with my boss had nothing to do with it, honest). So I went to another doc near my house (Raffles Medical Clinic's infamous Dr. O T Gan).

And after yet another wait, and yet another cursory examination (this time it was temperature, BP and stethoscope), he pronounced that I had a mild viral infection, and gave me the day off. He also asked me to describe my other medicines and declared that Dr C. Lim (of yesterday) had mis-diagnosed me and unnecessarily given me antibiotics.

I was to immediately stop yesterday's medicines, and take the new pills prescribed by him. Let the doctor wars begin!

But seriously, this is a pivotal moment in my hsitory with Singapore doctors - the first time a doctor has NOT prescribed me antibiotics.

But he did give me the following medicines:

• Chlorpheniramine (for runny nose) 1 tab thrice a day
  
• Paracetamol (for fever / pain, neither of which I have) 2 tabs thrice daily
  
• Bromhexine (for phlegm) 1 tab three times daily
  
• Random cough medicine

SO I have reached the following conclusion: I have a cough, a runny nose and have phlegm (both of which I can feel). Can't I diagnose this myself? Isn't it time we made these drugs available OTC, and reduced our doctor fees?

I shall ponder these, as I lie in bed this cool rainy Tuesday.

Bash.org - the site for much geek humour

This is hilarious!

Nori123: You don't know jack shit
VioletSky: That's not true, I know him well
Nori123: Haha
VioletSky: I'm serious
VioletSky: Jack is the son of Awe Schitt and O. Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O. Schitt, the owner of Needeep N. Schitt Inc. They had one son, Jack. In turn Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt, the deeply religious couple produced 6 children
VioletSky: Holie Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Giva Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins: Deap Schitt and Dip Schitt. Against her parents' objections, Deap Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school drop out.
VioletSky: However, after being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later remarried Ted Sherlock and, because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name.
VioletSky: She was then known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock. Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt and they produced a son of nervous disposition, Chicken Schitt.
VioletSky: Two other of the 6 children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony.
VioletSky: The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens wedding. The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Hoarse.
VioletSky: Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt.
VioletSky: So there.
FiPo: LOL
Nori123: I have actually chortled coke through my nose