Wednesday 22 October 2008
RIP Jane Dale
The best of us in the Calder Valley set. I'm completely floored. Tragic accident, no fault, no sense.
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Thursday 9 October 2008
Conference Dinner #1
Conference dinners are a subtle art. The attendees typically only have their work in common, but are too tired from a day of lectures to engage on that level in any detail. So, it's a requirement for speed and distraction; smoke and mirrors. With this in mind, last night we were treated to: A Morris dancing troupe (some shocked faces among the international contingent to the dancers in blackface); an eco-industrial museum; and a rhubarb crumble served with such ballistic gusto as to resemble a bird strike. Suffice it to say that by popular request the coaches left two hours early.
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mLearn 2008 - before their time?
Picture a mobile technology conference where the organisers cannot provide any form of connectivity to the delegates; cannot run a powerpoint show on a projector without crashing it; place RFID trackers in delegates bags withhout consent, and then can't make the attendance system they are supposed to enable work... Place all this in a hotel with hot and cold running cockroaches, and we're off! Maybe I'll feel more sanguine with time, but today the content is masked by the administrative shortcomings.
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Gmail trickle
More confused Americans:
- Sorry, Phil Israel: I can't make your 9am meeting, even though you now discover it was scheduled for 10am anyway.
- Kristina Chu: I'm still nothing to do with student law clubs at your august organisation, so I have no need of the student budget questionnaire, thanks...
Friday 12 September 2008
Song stuck in my head
America for Beginners by Latin Quarter
What's keeping the White House white?
Is it chalk, is it fog, is it fear?
Are they staying up most of the night,
Sending somebody out for a beer?
Is it bedtime for Bonzo, is it time for a change?
Is it flavour-free TV dinners?
It's a hard thing to take, when they make a mistake:
America for beginners...
The sound of a bell with a crack,
Even the swingers are swinging right.
The vigilantes are on their way back,
With prime time 'fight the good fight'.
What a start to the day, starts three times with a K,
There's no 'sponsored hour' for sinners.
They'll bring back the hot seat, turn up the heat...
America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for beginners
You wear designer jeans after dark,
Your shirts are short cut, in satin.
But watch out for Central Park,
The apartments in uptown Manhattan.
It's a sign of the times,
You'd better stay out in front:
They've only got time for winners.
Just keep living for fun, you son of a gun,
In America for beginners.
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for
Beginners
Everywhere
Stripes and stars
Men in dark suits in unmarked cars
Sipping Jack Daniels in Third World bars
We're close to the edge,
as close as we can get...
We're as close as we can get.
What's keeping the White House white?
Is it chalk, is it fog, is it fear?
Are they staying up most of the night,
Sending somebody out for a beer?
Is it bedtime for Bonzo, is it time for a change?
Is it flavour-free TV dinners?
It's a hard thing to take, when they make a mistake:
America for beginners...
The sound of a bell with a crack,
Even the swingers are swinging right.
The vigilantes are on their way back,
With prime time 'fight the good fight'.
What a start to the day, starts three times with a K,
There's no 'sponsored hour' for sinners.
They'll bring back the hot seat, turn up the heat...
America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for beginners
You wear designer jeans after dark,
Your shirts are short cut, in satin.
But watch out for Central Park,
The apartments in uptown Manhattan.
It's a sign of the times,
You'd better stay out in front:
They've only got time for winners.
Just keep living for fun, you son of a gun,
In America for beginners.
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for, America for beginners
That's America for
Beginners
Everywhere
Stripes and stars
Men in dark suits in unmarked cars
Sipping Jack Daniels in Third World bars
We're close to the edge,
as close as we can get...
We're as close as we can get.
Wednesday 3 September 2008
Lyrics of the Day
Orpheus by David Sylvian
Standing firm on this stony ground,
The wind blows hard, pulls these clothes around.
I harbour all the same worries as most -
The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost.
I wrestle with an outlook on life
That shifts between darkness and shadowy light.
I struggle with words
For fear that they’ll hear,
But Orpheus sleeps on his back
Still dead to the world.
Sunlight falls,
My wings open wide...
There’s a beauty here I cannot deny.
And bottles that tumble and crash on the stairs
Are just so many people I knew never cared.
Down below on the wreck on the ship
Are a stronghold of pleasures I couldn’t regret...
But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide
As Orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side.
Tell me,
I’ve still a lot to learn.
Understand,
These fires never stop.
Believe me,
When this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear
The promise of my Orpheus sing.
Sleepers sleep as we row the boat,
Just you, the weather, and I gave up hope.
But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps
Were fuel for the fire and straw for our backs.
Still the voices have stories to tell
Of the power struggles in heaven and hell.
But we feel secure against such mighty dreams
As Orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring.
Tell me,
I’ve still a lot to learn.
Understand,
These fires never stop.
Please believe,
When this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear
The promise of my Orpheus sing
Standing firm on this stony ground,
The wind blows hard, pulls these clothes around.
I harbour all the same worries as most -
The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost.
I wrestle with an outlook on life
That shifts between darkness and shadowy light.
I struggle with words
For fear that they’ll hear,
But Orpheus sleeps on his back
Still dead to the world.
Sunlight falls,
My wings open wide...
There’s a beauty here I cannot deny.
And bottles that tumble and crash on the stairs
Are just so many people I knew never cared.
Down below on the wreck on the ship
Are a stronghold of pleasures I couldn’t regret...
But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide
As Orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side.
Tell me,
I’ve still a lot to learn.
Understand,
These fires never stop.
Believe me,
When this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear
The promise of my Orpheus sing.
Sleepers sleep as we row the boat,
Just you, the weather, and I gave up hope.
But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps
Were fuel for the fire and straw for our backs.
Still the voices have stories to tell
Of the power struggles in heaven and hell.
But we feel secure against such mighty dreams
As Orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring.
Tell me,
I’ve still a lot to learn.
Understand,
These fires never stop.
Please believe,
When this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear
The promise of my Orpheus sing
The vexed question of plates
I don't think this is a difficult scenario: Tuesday, I need lunch for 10 people, Wednesday I need lunch for 12 people. Corporate entertainment is a fairly well-established industry, I thought.
So, imagine my surprise:
"Hi, this is 'lets do lunch'. Just checking that as you have 10 plates from todays lunch, it would be OK just to drop off the two extra plates tomorrow. We'll assume that if you dont call back, thats OK".
Note the absence of a call back number or a name. So, yes, they wanted me to wash up their crockery so I could reuse it. Is there some plate shortage of which I was previously unaware? Perhaps a government initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of ceramic crockery?
24 hours later, and yes not only am I delivered food for 12 and 2 clean plates to eat from, they also collected and took away yesterdays ten plates... I despair of your species, dear reader. I'm starting my own.
(Hey, reproductive isolation is as good a definition of speciation as we have).
So, imagine my surprise:
"Hi, this is 'lets do lunch'. Just checking that as you have 10 plates from todays lunch, it would be OK just to drop off the two extra plates tomorrow. We'll assume that if you dont call back, thats OK".
Note the absence of a call back number or a name. So, yes, they wanted me to wash up their crockery so I could reuse it. Is there some plate shortage of which I was previously unaware? Perhaps a government initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of ceramic crockery?
24 hours later, and yes not only am I delivered food for 12 and 2 clean plates to eat from, they also collected and took away yesterdays ten plates... I despair of your species, dear reader. I'm starting my own.
(Hey, reproductive isolation is as good a definition of speciation as we have).
Gmail slows to a trickle
My various gmail alternate persona are clearly feeling starved of affection, as I have only two new firends to report:
- Thanks for Hackman's Bible Book Store for the special offers; they'll come in handy for my upcoming Bible Studies calls
- Apologies are due, however, to Gemma Daggs. I'm sorry that in my capacity as a treasurer of a club at Santa Clara Uni I have so far failed to get in my updated membership list. I wonder what club it is I run
Monday 1 September 2008
Wednesday 27 August 2008
The ongoing gmail quest
- Thanks, Jessica, for the updated seating plan. Am I with the family on table 10, or do you think I am Michael, on the sweetheart table (?) with my wife?
- Thanks, St John's Ambulance, Australia, for confirming my fast-track booking to your Level two course. Travel is included, I hope?
- Thanks, Kathy of Manatron, for inviting me to an Office Live Meeting: unfortunately, 0700 on a bank holiday isn't a good time for me - still you were booking from a PST zone, so that's understandable.
- Thanks, Matt and Jan, for the baby photos; I (Michael) and Lula think the kids look charming. A bit confused by the photo of the Cafe Bambini, however. Also by your response to the vacation message, where you are "sorry for bringing this to our attention". Sleepless nights, eh?
- Annette, I wish I were indeed Michael, as you sound a most cheering correspondent. Rest assured that I will indeed enjoy any trips I have in the near future, and that if I grow any more tomatoes you will be welcome to some more. However, I am afraid Melissa lead you awry when she passed on my address. It seems Michael really has been "kicked off district email ASAP"...
Wednesday 20 August 2008
The message is getting out...
This afternoon, I'd like to thank:
- Julie Winkel, for giving the background needed to help me (Mary) arrange my interview with Steve of New Haven Uni. I'm sure the Media Relations department prospers under her leadership.
- Ross Perry and Bill Dutton for inviting me (Matt?) to come fishing off the pontoon in Iowa City tomorrow. Hope the worms work out, guys.
It's mine, dammit!
I was one of the original gmail beta testers; as a result I have a gmail address based purely upon my name, with no superfluous numerical suffix or other malarkey. I have for the past couple of years been fighting a losing battle against people who believe that they, having the same initial and surname, should automatically have rights to that address instead.
The dumb ones simply hand out the address to people, and wonder how they'll read the emails it receives afterwards. The smarter ones actually try to access the inbox first: finding they cannot log in, they issue a password change request - which of course is sent to me for validation...
Anyway, no more. I have set a vacation message on the account that, shall we say, makes clear my level of frustration with the account abuse. It also mentions that I'll be blogging all future traffic to the account. So, todays installment:
The dumb ones simply hand out the address to people, and wonder how they'll read the emails it receives afterwards. The smarter ones actually try to access the inbox first: finding they cannot log in, they issue a password change request - which of course is sent to me for validation...
Anyway, no more. I have set a vacation message on the account that, shall we say, makes clear my level of frustration with the account abuse. It also mentions that I'll be blogging all future traffic to the account. So, todays installment:
- Thanks to Colleen Laich for her offer to take me (Matt) for a birthday dinner on the 26th or 27th. Unfortunately, I have a clash...
- On the 27th, when I (Michaela) am due at a legal club presidents lunch and organisational meeting at the mall on campus
- Fortunately, I (Mary) can take comfort from a voucher towards the cost of joining my local Bible studies group
Tuesday 19 August 2008
Rasputina makes 'song of the day' list
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a song about an old man. He had a cow. He had but one cow, and the cow died.
He loved the cow better than his own child.
When the cow died, getting grieved by the cow was going no milk and butter.
At home.
So, here come this song.
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had ploughed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had ploughed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
When the old man heard that his cow she was dead
over hedges and ditches you see he had fled
Over hedges and ditches and fields that were mown
he ran for his life just to get to his own
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Now I sit down and I eat my dried meal
but I have no milk what to put in my pail
I have no butter to sop with my bread
now old wicked Dickie is dead
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had plowed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
He loved the cow better than his own child.
When the cow died, getting grieved by the cow was going no milk and butter.
At home.
So, here come this song.
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had ploughed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had ploughed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
When the old man heard that his cow she was dead
over hedges and ditches you see he had fled
Over hedges and ditches and fields that were mown
he ran for his life just to get to his own
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Now I sit down and I eat my dried meal
but I have no milk what to put in my pail
I have no butter to sop with my bread
now old wicked Dickie is dead
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
Oh, wicked Dickie done died
If you mourn for Dickie, I'll tell you right now
He was an old man and he had but one cow
Over hedges and ditches and fields he had plowed
He ran for his life just to get to his cow
Monday 18 August 2008
Jealous?
Well, he started shooting at more or less the same time as me, but he switched to the dark side maybe a year earlier. Club tournament yesterday (American round, compound unlimited, 697 scored: second class would have been 713), and he told me he'd been selected for the County team at the SCAS shoot. What I said was "Congratulations!" but what I was thinking was far less praiseworthy.
Then he continued "It's a shame that my first County shoot is then, because its right in the middle of my first chemotherapy"... for advanced bowel cancer. I remember a few weeks back we were chatting around how maybe he thought he had an ulcer.
So I've been reflecting on competition and jealousy in general.
Then he continued "It's a shame that my first County shoot is then, because its right in the middle of my first chemotherapy"... for advanced bowel cancer. I remember a few weeks back we were chatting around how maybe he thought he had an ulcer.
So I've been reflecting on competition and jealousy in general.
Friday 15 August 2008
Lyrics of the day
I said I'd never walk away,
But it seems we have come to that very day.
Don't waste your adrenalin
On the mess that we are in...
- Briskeby
But it seems we have come to that very day.
Don't waste your adrenalin
On the mess that we are in...
- Briskeby
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Mozart's last letter
" I am appointed to a situation which will afford me leisure to write music just to please myself, and I feel capable of doing something worthy of the fame I've acquired. But, instead, I must die."
... and the glory of the world becomes less than it was.
... and the glory of the world becomes less than it was.
Thursday 7 August 2008
Overindulgence
This software swallows all my best 'live' posts. Feel free to assemble the snippets below into an account of an evening that amuses you:
- 180 shots of flavoured vodka and counting
- Rochfort 10 Trappiste
- How does one share soup in a Tapas Bar?
- The cleverness of the comment blinded me to the impact it might have
- Teenagers in their first bar that doesn't ask for proof of age ID
Management
I am subject to an experiment in management style; enlightened bribery. I must say from my perspective its working out rather well. You can't help worrying if there might be a steel claw in the king-prawn-and-monkfish-kebab glove, though. Perhaps one dark day the Pinot Grigot will run red, the hotel suites wither into hastily-fumigated student bedrooms, the flights remain earthbound and replaced with trains full of 'special people' and missed connections... But until then we dance on.
Thursday 8 May 2008
Testing mobile access
So, can I blog from my mobile phone? It seems so...
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Monday 28 April 2008
Forecourt nightmare
How ludicrous. A tank full of petrol and a 'card declined'. Rescued by the mobile phone, ultimately - but not without discovering that I don't know how to operate it correctly. My inability to bring up a keypad while in mid-call denied me the soothing anonymity of automated phone banking, and I had to deal with a call centre zombie. A fine start to a Monday morning.
Now to discover where the expletive deleted money went...
Now to discover where the expletive deleted money went...
Clue
Humph died on Friday, aged 86. I never knew he was president of the italic handwriting society. I assume that ISIHAC will be respectfully withdrawn - which equates to increasing the rerun frequency on BBC7, I suppose.
Friday 25 April 2008
Satisfying, but ethically unsound
I detest 'the weekly shop'. I've tried joining the late night zombies, I've tried joining the lonely singles on a Monday or Tuesday evening, I've tried shouldering my way through the family groups on a Saturday mid-morning - whatever the human foam (I wanted to type 'scum') washing through the aisles, it can't disguise the battleground of psychological warfare that is the supermarket.
A topic for another time.
In any case, on this particular evening, my retail joy received its capstone in the form of a surly, tattooed checkout wallah who betrayed both physical and social stigmata of falling somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Usually at the checkout I simulate 'we'll-get-through-this-together', although it probably comes across as some Victorian disdain of the mercantile classes. That night, somewhere between the inarticulate grunts, the uncooperative plastic bag dispenser (no, no green 'bags for life' for me) and the unneccessary bruising of my fruit selection, I lost all sympathy for the employee side of retail hell.
But even Jove nods.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but my groceries for the week will taste all the sweeter as a result of a cash back request being entered as cash tendered, by my Neanderthal till operative, the upshot being that the face value of the notes handed me was also subtracted from my bill to pay by card. A trolleyful of mediocre comestibles (including a now rather bruised pineapple) for the princely sum of 93p.
Let's be clear. I did feel some dim stirring of guilt, a moments' consideration for pointing out the error and saving the poor lad from a till coming up £40 short at the end of the shift. But I allowed the misanthropy and avarice engendered by fighting off the machinations of the retail psychologists and then dealing with the perfect embodiment of the cashier from hell to quash this glimmer of honesty and fellow feeling. Does that make me a bad person?
I polled my work colleagues on the following morning. On balance, it looks like it does. Oderint dum metuant.
A topic for another time.
In any case, on this particular evening, my retail joy received its capstone in the form of a surly, tattooed checkout wallah who betrayed both physical and social stigmata of falling somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Usually at the checkout I simulate 'we'll-get-thro
But even Jove nods.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but my groceries for the week will taste all the sweeter as a result of a cash back request being entered as cash tendered, by my Neanderthal till operative, the upshot being that the face value of the notes handed me was also subtracted from my bill to pay by card. A trolleyful of mediocre comestibles (including a now rather bruised pineapple) for the princely sum of 93p.
Let's be clear. I did feel some dim stirring of guilt, a moments' consideration for pointing out the error and saving the poor lad from a till coming up £40 short at the end of the shift. But I allowed the misanthropy and avarice engendered by fighting off the machinations of the retail psychologists and then dealing with the perfect embodiment of the cashier from hell to quash this glimmer of honesty and fellow feeling. Does that make me a bad person?
I polled my work colleagues on the following morning. On balance, it looks like it does. Oderint dum metuant.
A new hope...
I'm not sure how long this experiment will last. The web may offer us 'infinite ink', but I'm not sure that justifies the general vomitus of trivia that is the blogosphere. We shall see, dear (imaginary) reader...
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