Logic Games

Alan wishes to rent a cottage on the beach for a week with some of his friends. At least two other couples must go to make the trip economically possible. Alan cannot find a cottage that sleeps more than Here are the couples who can go:
Sandy and Daniel; Freddy and Naomi; Jason and Vanessa; Charte and Chancey; Julio and Guty; Alex, Ian and Jen; Willavette and her sister; Matt and Shelley.

Rules: Sandy doesn't really like anyone else, except for perhaps Alex and Ian. Alan would like for Matt and Shelley to go, but Sandy says Shelley "makes her feel dirty." Sandy also doesn't like Willavette and her sister.
Daniel and Jen are bossy drama queens.
Charte and Chancey will not go unless Jason and Vanessa go.
If Freddy and Naomi go, Alejandro, Oliviah, and Brittney will go.
Jen still hasn't gotten over Daniel calling her a name which rhymes with "witch."
If Julio goes, he will break something, and they will have to forfeit the security deposit.
Jen will not go unless Alex and Ian go and she has someone to boss around. Alex is spineless and will not go unless people who wouldn't have gone anyway (Joey) go.
Ian will go.
Julio has lost his telephone twice between the time Alan started planning the trip and the due date and no one can get in touch with him.

1. Which of the following could be the list of couples who go?

(A) Alan and Trey; Sandy and Daniel; Freddy and Naomi; Alex, Ian and Jen; Julio and Guty.
(B) Alan and Trey; Sandy and Daniel; Freddy and Naomi; Julio and Guty;
(C) Alan and Trey; Freddy and Naomi; Jason and Vanessa; Charte and Chancey
(D) Alan and Trey; Freddy and Naomi; Charte and Chancey; Ian, Alex, and Jen.
(E) No one; Alan gets frustrated with the drama and drinks gin in the bathtub that week until he thinks he is at the beach.

2. If Jen comes, which of the following must be true?

I. Daniel and Jen design competing amusements to see whom they can control.

II. Sandy stays outside smoking and wondering sotto voce what is wrong with everyone.

III. Jen wants to eat in bad chain restaurants, while Daniel wants to cook so that he can impress everyone with his total Iron Chef-ness.

(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) III only
(D) I, II, and III
(E) I, II, and III, plus Daniel makes fun of Jen's swimsuit and she has a fit and wants to go home on Thursday.

3. If Willavette and her sister go, which of the following would be false?

(A) Sandy spends the week making grumbly noises under her breath.
(B) Willavette and her sister don't talk to anyone after the first day.
(C) Willavette and her sister didn't really want to go to the beach, but Freddy and Naomi talked them into it.
(D) Everyone scatters at mealtimes rather than deal with each other.
(E) Alan drinks gin all week and won't eat anything, claiming he gets his sustenance from "looking at my food long enough."

4. If Alex goes, which of the following must be true?

(A) He develops a new twitch from Jen and Alan making fun of him simultaneously.
(B) He develops several new twitches from Jen and Alan making fun of him simultaneously.
(C) He twitches so much he can't be seen in public.
(D) Jen talks him into camping on Cumberland Island and he is arrested for molesting the wildlife.
(E) Sandy intervenes and tells everyone not to make fun of Alex, while Alan drinks a liter of gin and babbles about Lady Thatcher before collapsing.

5. If Daniel and Jen agree on something, what is it likely to be?

I. The accomodations that Alan has chosen are not luxurious enough; had they chosen the accomodations, they would have been at least four star.

II. The water smells bad, too.

III. They should have gone to Savannah instead where the beaches are better and Jen could have gone clubbing.

(A) II only

(B) II and III

(C) III only

(D) I, II, and III

(E) I, II, and III, plus they agree that Alan shouldn't drink so much gin.

1. (B). Jason and Vanessa are fighting again and don’t want to go anywhere. This means that Charte and Chauncy aren’t going to go out of “loyalty” Julio wanted to go but got drunk, forgot what week it was and shows up to leave the week after.

2. (E). Daniel told Jen she looked like a cow because he was drinking whiskey, against Sandy’s wishes. Jen took Alex and Ian camping on Cumberland Island, and so Daniel planned an impromptu camping trip on Cumberland, but Alan and Sandy refused to go because Alan is afraid of snakes and Sandy won’t go anywhere less developed than a Holiday Inn. Daniel’s impromptu camping trip was cut off when he shoplifted an inflatable vinyl crocodile from the Majik Market.

3. (D) is false. (A) and (E) would have happened no matter who went. Laziness makes everyone except Jen eat Daniel’s cooking, which also leads to him saying she’s fat.

4. (E) is true. (D) is a myth concocted by Jen.

5. (E). Daniel and Jen never agree on anything again.

Thursday's Child

A new level of complete inattention to one's surroundings has been observed in Georgia, and the solitary regular reader of this site will be astonished to discover that it had nothing to do with Alex. I had to report on this- In Thursday's AJC, there was a story bemoaning the recent "epidemic" of obesity in children- and I would love to link to this story, but I don't know how to find it- and suggesting that the solution would be to print the student's Body Mass Index on their report card. This was the most amusing thing I had heard all week; I marvel at the complete and total disconnect of the Georgia Legislature from reality. Of COURSE the solution to children being fat is to print the student's BMI on their report cards. That should help the students whose parents were apparently unaware that their children were fat - - -

Also Trey had a job interview with the Creative Loafing and we are all hoping very hard that he gets it.

I had an idea for a t-shirt: I think I should put a picture of Trey on my t-shirt and have it say next to the picture: You Must Be This Cute to Ride This Ride

And They Lived Happily Ever After

We have had mostly a lovely Valentine's weekend up to this point; Friday we went to Brasserie Le Coze in Lenox for dinner- and it was Rather Good- not EXQUISITE, but still rather good- and then today Trey is taking me to dinner at the Watershed. Which is more than enough. He also got me a 2 year subscription to Bon Appetit and filled up the car's tank with petrol- he got, for those people who are competitive about such things, a subscription to National Geographic, the movie A Streetcar Named Desire, which he likes, a Jimi Hendrix CD, a Ministry of Sound CD, and a portable CD player and some batteries.
Actually, I don't give a flip about people who are competitive about such things. If Trey had the $, he would buy me more stuff. But he doesn't, and I don't expect it. Also I think that if I were in this relationship expecting Stuff, I would have been sadly disappointed a long time ago, and I am tired of explaining this to Material Girls. Relationships are about how someone makes you feel, and I feel plenty Romantic on a daily basis without having to Fake It with flowers (which Trey is indifferent to) or chocolate (which we have quite a lot of already, and he isn't supposed to be eating) or whatever. I, personally, feel Deep Feelings of Love when someone else does some loathsome and tedious chore that I cannot stand, like mow the lawn or vacuum. It makes my little heart go pitty-pat when someone (Trey) cleans up the bedroom or does the dishes. Oooh, and he knows how to put the MAN in RoMANtic as well, which I deeply appreciate.
I wonder why there seem to be so many people who seek things from their relationships that they really should be getting outside of those relationships; it's like seeking emotional bonding through work (well, a lot of people do that, don't they?). Why do so many people think that they should seek non-relationship goals through their relationships, like money? If I want more money, status, etc., isn't the proper way to reach that through a JOB? Marriage doesn't have the same meaning that it used to- we shouldn't be approaching it through the lens of the vestiges of what it was 40 or more years ago. My fate is not inextricably tied to my partner's.
Naturally, it would be easier- but every relationship involves some trade offs and I'd rather trade passion for predictability.
What else did we do? We went to the Opera this weekend with ROB, whom Trey is still having fits about- he is all jealous, which Rob found amusing- It was a lovely opera, La Boheme- although I still prefer Mma Butterfly- and we ate nicely beforehand at Baraonda, although I felt that $16 was a little steep for 5 raviolis, delicious though they may have been. Particularly as they came with no garnish or <> like artichokes or mushrooms or anything, they were just plain in a sauce. Jen and Alex also came to the Opera, and they claim to have enjoyed it, although Jen got all mad when I said if she ate bread pudding she would get fat and have to eat a tapeworm like Maria Callas. I don't think it's fair that she mocks other people mercilessly and can't take it herself. Unlike myself- I mock people mercilessly but don't care what people say about me, or Trey, who does NOT like people to make fun of him and never says anything hurtful to anyone else.
We watched the movie Dispense Me gave us, which is HER favourite movie, Y Tu Mama Tambien, which I did not care for; I think the main reason that I did not like it was that the two young characters seemed spoilt and annoying; they didn't lead Interesting Inner Lives or were Battling Weighty Demons or were Mysterious and Darkly Conflicted; they didn't even do anything during the movie. It was rather like one of my duller dreams, the kind in which Trey tells me that the seatback on the car is broken again and I am mildly annoyed, and complain, or the dreams in which I go to Kroger to buy milk. Not Movie- worthy. The two main characters, both teenagers, smoked a lot of pot and made fart jokes and had sex (although not with each other) and then there was their cousin, who was from Spain, broke up with her husband and went to the beach with them. I don't really need to see other people be debauched- it is not exciting, I have done enough of it myself- and I daresay I am a little more exciting when I am a Bad Little Gin Blossom and start yelling about non-existent fluorescent lights, at least that is unexpected. But this movie was like watching the boring parts from everyone's home movies.

Auschwitz vs. Sudan

No one, really, should be surprised at the ironic juxtaposition of the 60th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation and the U.N.'s attempts to find a euphemism for genocide in Sudan to avoid action.
While it is disappointing, it is also sadly unsurprising. The U.N. was not actually established to hold meetings and conferences and banquets; the purpose of the U.N. was to prevent tragedies such as Auschwitz from occuring again. Let us all agree it has been a dismal failure at that, from Prague in 1958 to the Suez Canal to Afghanistan in the 1980's to Pol Pot in the 1970's to Rwanda in the 1990's to Ethiopia in the 1980's to now Sudan. And the Congo and all those other little wretched places ruled by Hitler wannabes.
The point of this is supposed to be twofold: there is a lot of noise made about the suffering of the Jews in particular under Hitler- which I do not wish to deny or discount- to the point which anyone who at one point had even the most tenuous connection with him or the Nazi regime is immediately branded as evil. Witness the recent passing of the architect Philip Johnson who was impressed by Hitler in 1939- before most people understood the true horrors of what he was trying to bring about. Mr. Johnson had a lapse of judgement; a youthful confusion that a movie or Wagnerian opera was being enacted instead of actual events and was impressed. 65 odd years later, people still find it necessary to mention this bad taste in remembering him. Yet what is being done to stop the slaughter in Sudan?
It seems to me to be ridiculous to make a lot of noise about the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz when nothing -NOTHING- is being done to stop it in our time. The money being spent and the wind expended would surely be better put towards doing something about people suffering NOW.
Or the truth of it is that it's easier to spend money on dead white Europeans and make a lot of noise about them than it is about brown people in a more obscure hellhole.

Weekend!

We had a lovely weekend, highlighted by our trip to Helen-three days in the mountains with fireplace, hot tub, and Saniel and Ian. There were five of us, and it was very relaxing and I was a Bad little Gin Blossom only once. It was apparently quite icy here, so I am happy I missed that- it was very nice in Helen and I bought a pistol which shoots plastic BBs and a black leather hat that Ian says makes me look like the Creeper. One thing I have to ask- on Sunday, we ventured forth from the cabin to go into town, and Daniel had trouble getting his car up a muddy hill. He has a ?2003? Toyota Camry- Front wheel drive. He had it in low gear, but the hill was very muddy and the car kept spinning its tires and sliding back down. I had the idea, why don't you BACK the car up the hill, on the theory that A) this would, according to the laws of physics, place the weight of the car over the drive wheels and B) the gearing is different and C) sometimes it's easier to push something than pull it. Daniel thought this was a stupid idea, but I think that is just because he did not think of it; had he thought of it, it would have been a brilliant idea. At any rate, we found an alternate route that circumvented the hill but I am curious to see if this really is a stupid idea or not.
Also I was tempted to buy a clock-lamp object which cost $4.00 and was easily the most shockingly ugly object I have seen in a VERY long time. And I live next to the Dallases. The object claimed, on the box to "suit both refined and popular tastes" but I doubt it. I wanted to buy it on the theory that it would become the Object of Derision in the house, and everyone's attention, upon entering the house, would be immediately drawn to it and then they wouldn't notice that the rest of the house was dirty or dilapidated. Their critical attention would be immediately focused on the Object of Derision and then nothing else would be noticed. But I decided not to buy it.
Alex is trying to become a living Blonde joke, in addition to twitching, this is apparently going to be a String to his Bow. This actually happened- during the ice we had last weekend, the magnolia tree he has in his front yard, approximately 6 feet tall, broke. Any less, ah, INVENTIVE person would have been left with a 2 foot stump. Not Alex! No! He first tried - now this is coming from the source, mind you- to DUCT TAPE the tree back together, and then he tried to GLUE it back together. With WOOD GLUE. Why? I asked. For appearance, he said.
He worries me.