Blark.
Had extra kids on the weekend. I now have a preview of what my grocery bills will be like when there are teenagers in the house. I now have nightmares about when Connor is old enough to eat six (6!) waffles for breakfast, because he eats the really expensive gluten free kind, not the mildly expensive kind from Eggo.
Work has been busy, and is about to get busier. I'm going to have to spend some evenings out of town over the next few weeks. Note to self: start compensating Raven NOW.
Got promoted, though.
James
These little buggers are insidious.
I just made a call on my cellphone
from my desk. I had to look right past the deskset IP phone to get the number I was calling.
How lame is that? At least I'm still hardline about using the damn thing in the car.
James
Wanted: Adult company willing to put up with a grumpy James in a housecoat.
Alternatively,
For Sale: Screaming little hellion, cute. While quantities last.
James
(or maybe it's just that I haven't had coffee yet, and morning started two hours ago today)
Two DVD related things:
1)Does anyone know who I lent my Cowboy Bebop to? Because apparantly I don't. I thought I'd lent it to Brian, but he doesn't have a DVD player.
2)ARGGGGGGHHHHHH! I have been given episodes 1 through 8 of the new Battlestar Galactica. On DVD Rom. I don't have a DVD Rom drive in the house. My laptop at work is not DVD Rom. I tried watching them through osmosis and that didn't work either. Waaaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyy! Help!
James
Weddings and Funerals
"Hey, it's Uncle Fred! I haven't seen you since Doug and Sarah got married - what was that, 3 years ago now?"
"Four, almost. What have you been up to?"
Sound like a familiar conversation?
When I was younger, it often seemed that the only time I saw far-flung uncles and cousins was for weddings and funerals. Now that I'm getting older and have a family of my own, it's starting to seem that I only see far-flung brothers and nephews at weddings and funerals. So it comes as no real surprise that weddings and funerals, aside from their main purpose, also serve as touch-points for friends and relatives.
But really, how separate is that from the main purpose? Are we honestly that interested in what Uncle Fred's been doing for three years? If we were, it wouldn't have been three years since we talked to him. So are we talking to Uncle Fred because it's expected and "oh no, here comes Aunt Ginny with her stories about the damn cat again", or something like that? No, becuase it always seems that, no matter how small the gathering, it's always possible to avoid the Aunt Ginnys and catch up with the Uncle Freds. And also, it's easier to tolerate Aunt Ginny than it is when she phones on a random Tuesday.
I think that it's because we recognize that weddings and funerals are turning points. Unconsciously at least, we acknowledge that this is a momentous event and that things will not be the same. So we touch and reaffirm that all is well with our social world. We seek to confirm that, despite this change, things will go on as they were. It's a very important tribal function - both for us and even moreso for the immediately affected.
The married couple needs the confirmation that the tribe is around them, and the bereaved need the awareness that the tribe survives despite the loss of a member. From pop psychology all the way up to the serious stuff it is widely acknowledged that facing something alone makes it substantially more stressful.
So catch up with your Uncle Fred and listen patiently to Aunt Ginny. It's an important social function, and when you make vague plans to keep in touch remember that the important part isn't really the keeping in touch, it's your presence in the tribe that counts. If you ran through the room dressed in furs and beat your chest it would still serve. People will just shake their heads and say "Oh, that would be your cousin James. He's a little weird, but you know what they say: you can't pick your family."
James
(And yes Star, I am still contemplating that JP thing, thank you very much.)
Boink.
No reason, I just felt like sharing that odd sound with you this morning. It's that kind of morning.
Apologies for the lollybloggery, I've been spending online time elsewhere in the last week or so, as well as just spending less time online. Yikes - even Lazarus has updated more recently than I have. I'm still more recent than Bregon though, so I'm not being completely negligent to the three of you.
As people who also check news on
Blank Shield Press are aware, Adobe InDesign has arrived and I've spent some time mucking around in there trying to learn it the complex way. I've also been doing some playing/reading with CSS, although none of that will show online yet - all my playing to date is with the offline version of BSP.
I've always wondered how Trekkers (Trekkies? Trekites? Whatever they're calling themselves this generation) could live with themselves when they tormented their children with fake ears and Spock haircuts and taught them to speak Klingon as a second language. Then I realized, it's because they're so
darn cute. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that yesterday I had the following conversation with Kalen (after appropriate prompting):
Me: Have you tried the Spoo? It's fresh today.
Kalen: Bah! Only a Narn would eat fresh Spoo!
I wonder what she would look like with a cute little Centauri haircomb... (no, I'm not serious)
James
Remember how, back in the rush of computers to the desktop, how we were promised a paperless office?
It feels like one of those antiquated and amusing little things like "640k ought to be enough for anyone", but my neat and obscure fact for the day is that, ironically, we are both using more paper and are closer to that paperless office ideal than we've ever been.
Every year sees a decrease in information printed: computers are actually doing what they promised, and reducing the paperwork.
However, every three to seven years also sees the volume of information
double or triple, according to the Delphi Group.
So we are printing less of the information that comes across our desks. It's just that there's a lot more information coming across our desks. It isn't that we are printing more, it's that we vastly and to a mindboggling degree underestimated how information storage and access technology would grow.
James
