Oddly Enough Blog
News, but not the serious kind
So, you guys here on that Groupon deal?
Blog Guy, wake up! Looks like you fell asleep at your computer.
Oh, yeah, thanks. I was going through the so-called “family photos” of finance ministers from the APEC Summit in Hawaii, and I keep falling asleep.
Can’t you get somebody else to do that?
Who? Who on earth is EVER going to look at these pictures, and yet they are a staple of every single summit. There are so many people, we don’t even bother to name them.
And it isn’t just finance ministers. We have world leaders at the summit, we have SPOUSES of world leaders, all so that 1,000 years from now historians can look at them and say, WTF?
One year, every single leader was naked in a group photo. Nobody noticed.
I will say this for the finance ministers. At least they were smart enough to take their photo indoors, as opposed to the world leaders, who posed beside the palm trees and ocean. Just their way of saying to taxpayers, “Hey, chumps, thanks for sending us to paradise!”
Blog Guy, what’s going on in that top photo, anyway?
Oh, that’s the only interesting tradition at these summits. The spouse of the leader in the host country has to inspect the shoes of everybody else, to make sure nobody is wearing flip-flops.
Wow! See, that’s news to me. You’re the only one who reports stuff like that!
Thanks. Um, there may be a reason for that.
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Top: Tim Mathieson (L) of Australia shows U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama his cowboy boots before she hosts a luncheon with the spouses of APEC leaders at Kualoa Ranch on the east side of Oahu in Kaaawa, Hawaii November 13, 2011. REUTERS/Hugh Gentry
Right: The APEC finance ministers pose for a family photo after the first of their meetings at the APEC Summit in Honolulu, November 10, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Left: U.S. President Barack Obama poses with other APEC leaders for a family photo at the APEC Summit in Honolulu, November 13, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Reed

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@Shra has a new goal: To marry the leader of the host country of the APEC summit so that she can examine everyone’s shoes.
It would have been less expensive if they had all met at the Luau Hale in Lenox, Massachusetts.
I should state I have no financial connection to the Luau Hale so have nothing to gain if they do choose to meet there next time (although I hear that next place will be in Siberia). (hmmm, wonder if Krasnoyarsk will be booked up.)
@Frisco: Sounds like you’d do a better job balancing the budget than our current Congress and the rest of the US government.
When Baz/Lamar 2012 becomes the winning ticket, maybe you can be the Secretary of the Treasury or Commerce.
Photo one: Michelle refuses to join in the quaint
Australian game of ‘pull my foot’.
Photo two: The Police line-up of suspects in the hotel lobby bathroom ‘incident’ proved to be fruitless as the best description of the culprit was ‘he looked like an accountant’.
Photo three: Mr O’Bama wants to know who that creepy guy on his right is, and why he is smiling all the time.
Blog Guy, that headline cracks me up.
Rrrring! Rrrring!
- Hello?
- Julia? Julia Gillard? Hey, it’s Barak.
- Barak! What’s up, mate?
- Check your e-mail. Groupon has this great deal. Let’s get the other world leaders and their partners together and have our next APEC meeting using this Groupon deal. You call Mr. Noda. I’ll call Hu Jintao.
- OK, sounds good, mate.
Looks like FLOTUS is learning how to do the silly walk!
You put your right foot in…
“Why, I REALLY stepped into a pile of, ummm,’male, fully equipped, ruminants discharge,’ didn’t I, Mrs Obama ?”
With fully operational eyes, I must now scrub all of my foot wear! I always thought that my sandals, shoes and boots were used as leg building weighted gear! Boy, am I blushing, or what?
“Who? Who on earth is EVER going to look at these pictures…”
Well..umm…we did? At least those three anyway. So what does that say about us?
Baz/Lamar 2012!
I humbly offer a haiku:
Finance ministers
Know how to have a good time
They smile and say cheese
Looking at the second photo, I was expecting them to break into song. Don’t think I’d like the song they’d be singing.
Baz/Lamar 2012! Doughnuts and a luau, common sense and know how!
Ah Spin! If only!
@Onedoor: Well it ain’t Ode to Joy.
That’s it! Coconut eaters! APEC – The Association of People Eating Coconuts!
Look Michelle, I stepped in something.