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.