Whatever I find interesting
My folks are in town today so I am taking a breather from posting. If you are at all interested in history (either WWII or Civil War) go check out today’s post at Where is Basil?
I’ve got links to several cool sights with lots of information and more than a few cool photos there today so head on over and get your click on! Poke around a while.
Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.
Anyone interested in a really cool idea of a travel blog should go check out Where is Basil?
The premise is silly – a fictitious donkey named Basil (accompanied by a Fawlty Towers DVD set – Read the explanation page for more.) is visiting different people who have signed up on The List. When Basil is visiting that person, they write about what he sees in their fair city.
They even have a cool map of all the places that he is visiting. In addition to a whole bunch of places here in the states, list includes places like
Right now Basil is with Gorgeous and I in Savannah. So if you’d like to learn a few tidbits about Savannah from someone living here, check it out! I’m even throwing in lots of photos from around town!
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.
Gorgeous and I went to a birthday party last night for a friend of hers she met through our local Small Business Chamber. Eventually we all got talking about travel.
It turns out Gorgeous and a couple of the other guests had all lived in Australia for a while. The evening went by quickly as they each took turns telling stories of their time there.
I was fascinated because the three of them all spent time in different parts of the country and seemed to have very different experiences.
One of the guys had lived in Perth for a couple years and said he felt very isolated there because the city is so far from anywhere else.
Of course he decided isolation was a bit relative when he heard that Gorgeous had spent a year living in Broome, which they both agreed was the “back of beyond.” Gorgeous said the locals used to talk about slipping into “Broome Time.” Apparently nothing moved quickly there.
Of course that may be changing a little since she was there, what with the increase of tourism and all. Check out this web cam on the beach in Broome and decide for yourself. (Remember they are about 12 hours out of sink with us here in the states so it will be dark there during our day time.)
The third gentleman at our party was a little older and spent some time in Sydney during the 60’s. He said that when he was there then the memory of World War II was still pretty fresh and the Australians absolutely loved Americans then.
If you are in to travel then go ahead and check out Where is Basil? The blog is about the ongoing travel adventures of a fictitious donkey. The idea is there is a set of DVD’s of the old British TV show Fawlty Towers which is being mailed around to people who sign up at the blog and for the week that they have the DVD’s they describe what the Basil the donkey does while he’s there. Then they send the DVD’s off to the next person on the list an Basil heads to the next place. It is truly a global travel adventure.
I bring it up because Basil is here in Savannah and I’ll be posting some tourist type things over there for the next week or so.
I tried to explain the whole thing a while back in Adventures in Traveling. But don’t take my word for it. Check out Basil’s blog.
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.
Well I’m heading home this morning. Finally. It’s been a weird trip.
Interestingly enough it turns out I’m going to miss Basil here in Chicago by about an hour.
Who is Basil? Well he’s the Code-Writing-Party-Donkey, of course.
But that’s not the right question.
The right question is really Where is Basil?
And that will take a little bit of explanation.
You see there are a bunch of us Bloggy type folks who hang out on Tuesday nights over at Successful-Blog for Open Comments Night. It is just a time of sharing ideas. Some of us do get more than a little on the silly side, though.
Ben Yoskovitz is one of the folks who usually hangs with us. Ben has a tendency to show up late and even when he’s able to spell his own name right he often makes excuses about how he’s trying to keep an eye on the donkey that writes code for his web site. Well we’re a naturally curious lot so folks wanted to know more about the donkey.
And Ben is very creative and would throw in little anecdotes about the donkey and what he was up to. Ben really should have been one of the Stooges – really he’s sillier than I am, at least to my way of thinking.
Anyway we all decided we knew the donkey about well enough that he should have a name. We went round and round about it. I lobbied long and hard for Jack. I thought it was a perfect, if unimaginative, name for an… um, I mean a donkey.
Fortunately, in the interest of family friendliness, I was resoundly overruled. Somehow we were on the subject of Fawlty Towers we got talking about the characters. Basil is the name of the main character in that show played by John Cleese. Ben suggested Basil as a proper name for a code writing party donkey and it stuck.
Well in honor of a successful donkey naming Ben decided to run a contest with the prize being the DVD set of the Fawlty Towers show. His creative juices got flowing and he thought it would be really cool if the prize could be enjoyed by more folks than just the winner. A prize in perpetuity, so to speak.
Did I mention Ben is creative?
Anyway he pushed Basil out the door along with the DVD’s with the idea that they would spend a week with a winner then move on to another location to spend the next week with someone else.
I think Ben just got tired of cleaning up after the donkey.
But Ben started up a web site to track Basil’s progress. And he has invited anyone who would like to participate (and get a chance to view the Fawlty Towers DVD’s) to join the list.
Since I was there from the beginning, before Basil knew Jack so to speak, and since I like to laugh (I remember Fawlty Tower being totally hysterical) I signed up as soon as I got wind of the whole thing.
At the moment Basil is on a train from Stanford, Connecticut up here to see Liz in Chicago. They say his train should get in before my flight leaves.
It is all very silly, but it is going to be a very good time. Lot’s of laughs. And a chance to learn about new places as people report back on what Basil does when he visits them. In fact Basil is heading to Savannah to stay with us next.
Oh. I probably should let Gorgeous know that we are going to be having a quadruped houseguest in the next week or so. We’ll need to stock up on our hay and other fodder (especially carrots). It is a good thing she’s still got her Veterinary Technician certification. We may be needing it!
Anyway I’m off to the airport myself this morning. Check out Where is Basil? to keep up on his progress as he travels around the world donkey style.
Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.
