The new kid on the block went to tour the neighbourhood today, and the neighbours were content. No more ridicule from one end of the country to the other about having elected “a pig in a poke”. Not all of the spectators were satisfied, though. In particular, the man that was responsible for the Bloc (no K needed).
posted in politics | Comments Off on The new kid on the block | 268 words
My first time. I remember it as if it was yesterday. A friend had a catalogue from China.
Sorry about the confusion. My first time buying a lens for my camera. I couldn’t afford the rigour of retail, and this was a simple little booklet filled with product names and prices that were much cheaper than the domestic lists. The only catch: you sent your postal money order off to an address in Kowloon and then you waited for the slow boat. Literally. Time for fulfillment was in the range of six weeks or more, before the card from Customs and Excise arrived. No door-to-door when the government had its weigh/way.
posted in economy | Comments Off on Evolution in trade | 286 words
The clock on my telephone console showed 22 minutes past the hour. Incoherent, given that the wall clock showed 37 past and the computer screen announced 35 past. Three times, in perfect disaccord.
posted in technology | Comments Off on Does anybody really know what time it is? | 277 words
Maybe this means I’m part of the “middle class”: instead of hunting and gathering to exist, I can spend time planning vacations. Whether or not the travel plans ever materialize, I can spend hours checking out routing, wandering the virtual roads in Street View, drawing up budgets based on nothing more than the ideal information provided by carriers and destination guides. A world without hunger, or sickness. Utopia.
posted in travel | Comments Off on Potential (for) travel | 283 words
Went to an extended family supper this evening, wherein I learned that I know someone that knows a dog that knows another (similar) dog that knows someone I work with. Hadn’t foreseen that connection. Worse than six degrees of (Kevin) Bacon.
posted in travel | Comments Off on A day away | 281 words
Too many models. Of light bulbs, I mean. Sometime during the night, one of the two bulbs in my stove hutch burned out. Minor detail in cooking, extremely important during my speed read of the newspaper each morning. I hear the delivery, I grab the paper and I try to go cover to cover in minutes. Not possible in the dark.
posted in economy | Comments Off on Surfeit of variety | 264 words
I pride myself on having a good memory (for trivial details), but some things just push my buttons. Case in point; the added password required by my credit card issuer. The one that only comes into play when I purchase from certain firms with an odd need to have the client jump through virtual hoops.
posted in travel | Comments Off on Rarely prompted passwords | 291 words
I’m getting way too much of my world news on Slashdot. Stories like the mobile phone manufacturer that wants to put a 64-core processor in a handset, or the Chinese factory that wants its employees to sign “no suicide” pl edges shouldn’t even be on my radar. I don’t need to know that the new owners of MySQL are doing a better job, in return for lots of money. Why do I even care about Flash cookies?
posted in education | Comments Off on My technological dustpan | 294 words
Musically, the world doesn’t need any C & W Rap. Or heavy metal waltzes. Instead, let’s protect the classics. From the 70s and 80s.
posted in music | Comments Off on The value of glee in our world | 258 words
In a perfect example of Whack-A-Mole, the gang over in the virtual circus aka Twitter are forwarding results from the counted ridings to our east. No way of separating the wheat from the chaff, but in some future iteration one could know the “election results” without phoning a second cousin that you haven’t seen in years.
posted in media | Comments Off on Whack-A-Mole | 286 words
