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.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

Introvert?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

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

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).

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
More gmail tomfoolery when I can stomach it.

Monday 1 September 2008

Quotable

" The future is here: it's just not evenly distributed yet" - William Gibson