Well, quite a lot if it's the password you have forgotten.
I won't pretend that I haven't been blogging solely as a result of my inability to log on for the last few months. But it has been a contributing factor.
In order to maintain cosmic harmony, my success at getting into my blog has been counterbalanced by my abject failure to get into my online tax account.
There, in the ether, is a tax demand that will, most likely, chill my blood. So I can probably wait a few days for the bad news.
In the meantime, the balance of the universe is maintained.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Oh Solo Mio
Unthinkingly I agreed to go to Karaoke in Causeway Bay on Saturday. The evening was convivial, there were buckets of beer (literally) and lots of fun people to sing with.
The only things missing were the good songs. We would search through the meager English song selection, see an interesting artist and go to the song selection to be greeted with songs like
Horrible B side from 1993 you've never heard of
or
Sorry this well known song is being sung by the band "Bumfluff"
Very dispiriting.
The best part of the evening for me was singing arias in the corridor with my friend and it came to me in a flash of clarity that I don't actually need to go to a Karaoke bar to do that.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Get fresh for the weekend....
So having braved the existential hurdle of having a public holiday on a Tuesday (it's Monday today, right? DOH! ), Planet Magic is in high excitement due to the party invite for the weekend.
Only snag is it's fancy dress and the theme is rock legends. Most rock legends are not as challenged in the follicle department as I am so my choices are basically:
Sting
Michael Stipe
Peter Garrett
Otherwise it's wig time, & we all know how sweaty those get.......
Only snag is it's fancy dress and the theme is rock legends. Most rock legends are not as challenged in the follicle department as I am so my choices are basically:
Sting
Michael Stipe
Peter Garrett
Otherwise it's wig time, & we all know how sweaty those get.......
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Pen trivia
I have on my desk a stubby holder. Stubby holders, for those of you who don't know, are little neoprene vests to put beer cans in so that the warmth of your hand doesn't heat up the delicious chilled beverage you are holding.
Stubby holders are also good for putting pens in. Mine has about 30 billion biros in it. My problem is that approximately 0.3 pens actually work.
"How can 0.3 of a pen work?" I hear you ask. Well, most pens don't work at all. The one special pen, doesn't work then seems to respond to the desperate scribbling on the back of an old envelope, raises your hopes up high, and then refuses to write when you actually try to use it for anything.
Thus, technically, the pen works. For all practical purposes it is useless however.
The only way I cope with the futile search for a working biro is to try and view it as a Zen exercise in patience. I also get further opportunity to practice my self control when arguing with bank tellers about why I have had to write a cheque out in orange crayon.
One day I will have a Stalinesque purge of my stubby holders and all the bad pens will be cast out, never to return. One day...........
Stubby holders are also good for putting pens in. Mine has about 30 billion biros in it. My problem is that approximately 0.3 pens actually work.
"How can 0.3 of a pen work?" I hear you ask. Well, most pens don't work at all. The one special pen, doesn't work then seems to respond to the desperate scribbling on the back of an old envelope, raises your hopes up high, and then refuses to write when you actually try to use it for anything.
Thus, technically, the pen works. For all practical purposes it is useless however.
The only way I cope with the futile search for a working biro is to try and view it as a Zen exercise in patience. I also get further opportunity to practice my self control when arguing with bank tellers about why I have had to write a cheque out in orange crayon.
One day I will have a Stalinesque purge of my stubby holders and all the bad pens will be cast out, never to return. One day...........
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Maslow
When I was eight years old, I got shipped off to boarding school, where I remained, with time off for good behaviour and holidays, until I was nearly 18.
One of the byproducts of this is that, when asked what material goods make me happy, I answer with the following.
A fridge full of food
Fluffy towels and clean bed linen
Being warm enough
Nice carpet on the floor (UK only, not for hot countries).
All of the above were conspicuous by their absence at my school. For instance we had a drying room, a room full of hot pipes going back and forth across the walls with slatted shelves. Its purpose, to dry things out. Usually it was full of unwashed and muddy rugby kit (smelly bag of washing only taken away once a week, don'tchaknow). The smell was appalling but we loved it in there as it was a break from the unrelenting cold.
When questioned about non-material things, I always come up with "absence of physical persecution". There is nothing like being woken from a deep sleep by being dragged out of your bed to make you yearn for a room you don't have to share with 10 other boys.
So, as we can see, we are beginning to lurch slowly up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
There were, of course, many positives about my boarding schools. I gained a reasonable education, met some fine people (some of whom are still my friends), had access to some very interesting and educational magazines not available in shops in the UK (thanks to all the boys who took school holidays with their families in Germany) and had the use of excellent sports facilities.
Oh, and I also feel that people who have been to boarding school should hold up much better if, for whatever reason, they get sent to prison.
One of the byproducts of this is that, when asked what material goods make me happy, I answer with the following.
A fridge full of food
Fluffy towels and clean bed linen
Being warm enough
Nice carpet on the floor (UK only, not for hot countries).
All of the above were conspicuous by their absence at my school. For instance we had a drying room, a room full of hot pipes going back and forth across the walls with slatted shelves. Its purpose, to dry things out. Usually it was full of unwashed and muddy rugby kit (smelly bag of washing only taken away once a week, don'tchaknow). The smell was appalling but we loved it in there as it was a break from the unrelenting cold.
When questioned about non-material things, I always come up with "absence of physical persecution". There is nothing like being woken from a deep sleep by being dragged out of your bed to make you yearn for a room you don't have to share with 10 other boys.
So, as we can see, we are beginning to lurch slowly up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
There were, of course, many positives about my boarding schools. I gained a reasonable education, met some fine people (some of whom are still my friends), had access to some very interesting and educational magazines not available in shops in the UK (thanks to all the boys who took school holidays with their families in Germany) and had the use of excellent sports facilities.
Oh, and I also feel that people who have been to boarding school should hold up much better if, for whatever reason, they get sent to prison.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
a friend's half life
There has been some discussion amongst my friends about friendship recently.
As we are all ex-pats, there has been further discussion about how you go somewhere, make a bunch of friends and then they all bugger off and live somewhere else (frequently Minnesota for some reason).
The question then becomes "how long will you stay friends with these friends-in-absentia"?
One of my theories is that many friendships are struck up over common interests and shared experience. If that is all there is too it, then the intensity of the friendship will decay over time, perhaps in a fashion similar to that of a radioactive isotope decaying. Empirically, the half life of such a friend seems to be about 5 years. Any sustained separation longer than that without any intervals of refreshment seem to lead to an inevitable estrangement.
However you sometimes make friends where there is a meeting of the souls, or the sharing of an experience so profound that they become your friend forever.
It hasn't happened very often to me and it's these friends that I truly treasure.
I have been away from my home country for more than 5 years. Many of the good friends I had there have now become acquaintances. There are only 3 people left that I would still consider to be my good friends out of all those I left behind.
As we are all ex-pats, there has been further discussion about how you go somewhere, make a bunch of friends and then they all bugger off and live somewhere else (frequently Minnesota for some reason).
The question then becomes "how long will you stay friends with these friends-in-absentia"?
One of my theories is that many friendships are struck up over common interests and shared experience. If that is all there is too it, then the intensity of the friendship will decay over time, perhaps in a fashion similar to that of a radioactive isotope decaying. Empirically, the half life of such a friend seems to be about 5 years. Any sustained separation longer than that without any intervals of refreshment seem to lead to an inevitable estrangement.
However you sometimes make friends where there is a meeting of the souls, or the sharing of an experience so profound that they become your friend forever.
It hasn't happened very often to me and it's these friends that I truly treasure.
I have been away from my home country for more than 5 years. Many of the good friends I had there have now become acquaintances. There are only 3 people left that I would still consider to be my good friends out of all those I left behind.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Toast room
At school we had a little room sandwiched by the corridor to the side entrance and the downstairs toilets (very nice).
In the room was a counter, a sink, and, most importantly, an enormous bread bin and toaster.
Of a weekend, 50 adolescent boys with appetites the size of Texas would descend on this source of vital food. Vital as you couldn't be expected to last a whole weekend without several in-between meal snacks.
To be fair, the room was heavily patronised during the week also. However the key difference at weekends was that nobody cleaned the room from mid-Friday to Monday morning.
By the end of Sunday, all the available surfaces were a riot of breadcrumbs, spilt tea, blobs of condiment and, frequently, completely unidentifiable substances. The edges of the counters were of course the #1 convenient place to remove margarine, peanut butter and other leftovers from your knife.
Why not use the sink, I hear you ask? Because that was invariably filled with what can best be described as brown slurry. Also, I don't even want to start discussing the state of the dish towels.
There really is no point to this little story except to suggest that hygiene and a shared sense of responsibility for the state of the kitchen does not come naturally to males. This should come as no surprise to any woman who has had a male flatmate (husbands are different as they can be bullied into being a bit cleaner).
On a passing note, the fiance of my flatmate came to visit us once and commented that my bath towel did not appear to have been washed since her last visit a month previously. I posited my "towel theory" that, as I was clean when I used the towel, it would not become dirty and thus didn't need washing.
Logic is a wonderful thing
In the room was a counter, a sink, and, most importantly, an enormous bread bin and toaster.
Of a weekend, 50 adolescent boys with appetites the size of Texas would descend on this source of vital food. Vital as you couldn't be expected to last a whole weekend without several in-between meal snacks.
To be fair, the room was heavily patronised during the week also. However the key difference at weekends was that nobody cleaned the room from mid-Friday to Monday morning.
By the end of Sunday, all the available surfaces were a riot of breadcrumbs, spilt tea, blobs of condiment and, frequently, completely unidentifiable substances. The edges of the counters were of course the #1 convenient place to remove margarine, peanut butter and other leftovers from your knife.
Why not use the sink, I hear you ask? Because that was invariably filled with what can best be described as brown slurry. Also, I don't even want to start discussing the state of the dish towels.
There really is no point to this little story except to suggest that hygiene and a shared sense of responsibility for the state of the kitchen does not come naturally to males. This should come as no surprise to any woman who has had a male flatmate (husbands are different as they can be bullied into being a bit cleaner).
On a passing note, the fiance of my flatmate came to visit us once and commented that my bath towel did not appear to have been washed since her last visit a month previously. I posited my "towel theory" that, as I was clean when I used the towel, it would not become dirty and thus didn't need washing.
Logic is a wonderful thing
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