3-28-37

Yes, that is indeed the combination of my high school lock.

What about street racing, Lucky?

Pandy just sent the following question to her choice for Davenport: Lucky, as a cat who takes his life into his own paws every time you cross the street, I am sure you can understand the perils of street racing in the urban core (not to suggest it isn't dangerous elsewhere, but you're most certainly an urban cat of the people). What curtailing actions will you be able to take as our MPP regarding illegal street racing?
Your supporter, Pandy (age 9, black American Burmese / mongrel mix)

He's got my vote

New face on the ballot for Davenport: Lucky the cat.

The blog is back in town

Yah yah. Back by popular demand. Clearly one of you needs me. Thing is that work sucked the life out of me and I couldn’t even manage to find the energy to lift my head from my diet coke and Doritos [that is a proper noun and apparently I know enough grammar to call it such] induced haze or turn my eyes away from prime time television long enough to compose a blog entry. I don't know how you people do it that whole nine to five thing. Today I took the cat to the vet, biked to a coffee shop and did three hours of work, biked around and came home, made supper, did dishes, and crammed in another six hours of productivity [not in that order].
All on my time, sucka.
Am still freeing a lot of cells and discovered a version of Tetris [another proper noun] that is, well, totally Tetris just not called Tetris, so that cuts into some of my sched, but otherwise I am a free agent. The only labour I gots to sell is my brain thinking (see the post re bike helmets below. Brains are like my livelihood). And chewing Nicorette. I do an awful lot of that.

In other news, I am completely weirded out by how many people from high school are on facebook with photos of their offspring. But that’s maybe just as much the recoil from the bile in my mouth that results from what facebook is: a social networking site. Social and networking are two of my least favourite things. As Jinki says, I would make an ideal hermit.

Well, better get back to my game of Freecell… have got myself into a bit of a quagmire here.

Consider yourself warned

Yes, it has come to this. I am fed up - fed up! - with the various knocks to the door that have nothing to do with anything. This signage will soon be featured on billboards near you. If only I could give a similar message to the telemarketing robots that dial the numbers.



















BTW, we are only scratching the surface of this subprime lending thing, people.

Maybe it's "zexy" to Perez...

But to me, I don't think the outfit on the right could be any more Sue Ellen Ewing. Blech.

Note to self

Until I figure out how to get my browser to stop eating by bookmarks, these links go here. Then I know I can find them.... Prague and Tokyo

Now kids, it's going to be a long trip

Remember that relaxation technique I tought you on our last long haul to Bangkok? The one where you sit comfortably, rub your hands together to warm your palms, and then place them over your closed eyes to shut out all light? Then you take a deep breath and think of a pleasant situation? Then after three minutes you will have gathered fresh strength, enough not to fight and drive your mother and I crazy fighting back there as we prepare for take off? Daddy's gonna wipe this seagull poop off the windshield...

[mumbles] nearly got it...

and when I get back in the plane I expect you all to be halfway to nirvana or this plane is not taking off.

World brain

Everything you ever wanted to know about Wikipedia - and then some.

This little piggy went to Marche Movenpick

Feeling alive in 4705.
Today, after a gruelling hour and a bit spent at the stuff passport office (in which neither food nor drink is allowed... people are practially moving in to that place, and no food or drink? Enough with the patronizing already), I stopped by the Marche (now known as Richtree) in the Eaton Centre (flagship store = Sears) for a sandwich. I know I don't eats the bread often, but I fancied a sandwich. Money changes hands, yadda yadda, then this theme starts playing, an indication that "you've won something." To which I replied "Do I have to do anything." Fortunately not, just collect my voucher for my free medium caesar salad, to be enjoyed at the Eaton Centre Richtree only before March 5, 2007. Talk about a great start to a lucky year! They were right when they said the golden piglet is a year of prosperity. I never win anything, and I mean never ever never. In celebration of my good fortune, I attach the winning coupon - print it out and use it as many times as you want to before March 6th. I'll never use it.

Destination Manx?

Yes, news has been had on my future and it is good. Manchester has accepted me to their PhD in geography, which is fab. Everyone else is silent. I can only assume that the other schools to which I have applied noted that my birthday is this coming Thursday and they decided to hold off sending me any word until my birthday. Peter, who studies the geomorphology of late Cenozoic glacial formations in Patagonia, suggested it and everyone on the committee thought it was a fabulous idea.

Shibuya-san

Mr Pants has a panache for Japanese street fashion, largely due to the many pieces in his wardrobe that have gone mad in proportion and are better suited to guys like this, which, if he wants to wear, require wrapping the excess fabric around himself with one of those big pillowy things that hold your kimono in place. It all gives rise to a very now, very avant garde look. Accordingly, the other day in H&M we got crazy doing a photo shoot where I invented what I think might actually be the latest in Japenese style. Ici:


Although this here is a bit more Sears catalogue than what we can expect to see on the streets of T.dot 18 months from now:

Mr Pants' latest opus

Prettiebottom's partner, Mr. Pants, has recently worked on a film that is an objective critique of the methods of one Mike Moore, he of Roger, Columbine etc. See the trailer here.

Now, on one hand we can't condemn MM for bringing a slice of reality to the world that it might otherwise not wish to see but on the other did we really need to see MM being all SNAGy as he comforted and hugged a sobbing grade school teacher. Editing already, MM! Personally, I think the left is at a time in history where a bit of humility and reflexivity is in order, lest we succumb to total zealousness. For me, this critique of MM is a question of intent - just because one's intentions are valid does not warrant manipulation to acheive them. So there. And go see the film, assuming it gets distribution... turns out suggesting self-critique is a tough sell.

Chicken grooves and moves

I was just sent a link for Bird Flu M.I.A., which is a video from "M.I.A, aka London-born, Sri Lanka-raised rapper and singer Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam" shot in India, where she "discovered an amazing boy who can out dance anything i ve ever seen. He invented me the bird flu dance. I called this bird flu because this beat gon kill everyone!"

So then I gots to researching, and found not only the Jamaican interpretation of the dance that accompanies the beat of the bird flu but also the Ivory Coast version (and a story about H5N1 there too).

And that's why I love human geography, peoples.

Blogger.com

Get your shit together! It's only taken me 15 attempts in the past 40 minutes to manage to sign in, duh!

It's about...

... challenging preconceived ideas
See, I've been more or less convinced for the past few years that the misery of the workplace is concentrated in and comes primarily from the HR department, which is typically: on side of management rather than staff; got its head up its ass when e.g. one's laid off and finds one has to call them to remind them maybe they've got some forms for one to sign or something whatever; telling you one thing, meaning quite another; etc. The mathematical formula of the devestation they can bring on the spirit of workers looks something like this:
I went into this thing pretty smug and comfortable in my paradigm, but boy am I learning a lot! The HR people with whom I've had contact at current workplace aren't so bad. Either my theorem has some big holes in it or the workplace has gone through a paradigm shift in the three years I spent teetering on the brink of poverty and precarity, because it's dawned on me that other departments can be and are just as difficult with which to deal. Other departments have an over inflated sense of importance about themselves and thwart attempts at unambiguous communications - should they decide to communicate at all. Other departments are led by someone who, I swear, was an HR professional in a past life. Hence, the important modification to the theory that HR is, in fact, not constant but can -- and should -- be replaced by the name of whatsoever department is causing your grief.

Because here at Multiworld we're about solutions - tailored solutions to your problems. And changing paradigms.

Maybe it's reverse psychology

Got to thinking the other day that perhaps the director blah blah blah whose title is a pile of quack quack to me is using some kind of reverse psychology ("Work sux", Nov 26/06). Could the posting of Harris be inspiration of how not to do his job as an example of what director blah blah dude is working to redress? Still, it's a pretty big maybe.

If cats programmed tv...

Tonight the selection of shows on tv is so appalling that I asked big fat Pandy what she would put on if she was in charge of a national television network. She said
8pm - Catch that mouse
8.30pm - What's for supper?
9pm - Bird sounds (season premiere)
10pm - Napping around the house
Doesn't any of that sound better than reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond?

Love me, love my blog.

Nothing much to say - I just had to get that fabulous line out of me.

Go here now.

Go here now.
http://fromtheframes.blogspot.com/
It's good. I like it.

Am I just high on myself...

... or am I looking thinner in this photo than I do in the one to the right? I mean, I am ~35 to 40lbs lighter in this one than the one to the right (taken July05), and my prettiebottom is still, of course, ample. But I think you'll notice a definite thinning of me if you look at the pasty white thighs that protrude from the shorts. Yep, a definite improvement.

Verb, adjective, noun (and sometimes prepositions).

Funny thing is, when it comes to grammar that is not far off the extent of my knowledge. Ok, so I know not to end a sentence with a preposition (and even know what a preposition is [1] ), but really I found grammar too boring to warrant much of my attention in school. So imagine my surprise when I found myself undertaking a project of grammatical proportions yesterday!

For xmas, Mr Prettiebottom received a magnetic poetry set (Shakespearian english), which will compliment the corporate-speak set (received by Prettiebottom herself a few xmases ago) quite nicely, thank you. Who doesn't like to see "professional" and "management" in situ with "codpiece"? So I was staring at the fridge, wondering how to go about creating magic with these two worlds, but found myself wholly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of words on the fridge. Frightfully inefficient! Heretofor, I seteth upon sorting them grammatically. Verb, adjective, noun - as you will see from the attached schematic. What to do with the hims and Is (pronouns?), abouts, froms, and ins (prepositions? Are you sure?), and most vexing, the wherefores, would, can, coulds (are some of those verbs?)

No, I couldn't have chosen the alphabet--with which I am completely familiar--but instead had to pick a system of which I know the bare minimum of the rules.

[1] Heresois proof that I also knoweth not to split the infinitive, but apparently this only applies in latin and was scrapped from English grammar some thirty or fourty years ago, sayeth Jinki, who knows much about the mysterious workings of speaking English.