What I did on my wednesday

Now, in my time I've been in many slightly odd social situations.

People who believe that horses are more important then the homeless. Those who consider a good beating to be a perfect tuesday night. Discussions as to the best way to cook a small child.

This time...after a committee meeting we're at The Darlek's place. We're not screaming Exterminarin...or drinking vodka and coke.

Well, I'm not drinking vodka and coke.

We're instead making fools of ourselves on a new toy...a "Wii fit". And it looks hilarious. No, really, it does. They haven't dragged me on it yet though...

It does look like a great motivational tool for loosing weight and/or training. Well, the opening stages of any training. Wouldn't necessarily consider it as a primary training tool to say, run a marathon.

But for the parents....

(I'll see if the Darlek and his Limpit loose much weight - they're on a 30 day binge...)

How to handle holidays

Here I am, at the bunker, wondering how to handle holidays.

My co-worker, next desk over, is taking off two days this week and all of next week...which leaves me an issue - what do you do with holiday?

I've got something like 28 days worth of the stuff - call it 25 days, of paid holiday.

Now, I'm thinking of spending two weeks later this year somewhere where they get Real Snow if I can afford it. Assuming that works out, that's 2*5 days....so 15 days left.

Yep, 15 days, three weeks for all real purposes. I can take it in days, half days, long weekends...and I don't know how I want to do it.

Take a day a month, say, fridays? Leaves me 9 months this work year (I'm thinking of my work year, no matter what Human Resources say) so thats, um, 6 days left to burn.

Or do I go somewhere? Or reserve some for a evil, nasty binge at Christmas? Or enjoy hiding from the sunshine now, when I can?

Ummm....help?

Ten minutes in the bunker

Morning all - quick message from the bunker here, while lunch break ticks away...

I was listening to the radio this morning, as I drove down the nasty, nasty road on the way to work today. Nothing there, listening to the radio...

Today it was about something that I couldn't understand, not at first. It was about illiteracy - that small percentage of the population who can't actually read.

But here I ran into a problem.

I tried to imagine not being able to read. This turned quickly into an "imagine you can't see colour" exercise. Try, as hard as I could, I failed.

Finally, after an Eternity of Hell on the road to work, I arrived and attempted an exercise, but again I was simply unable to do it.

I could not see a word and not read it. If I tried, really, extremely hard I could read the letters before the meaning came. But even then, the meaning was always there waiting for me.

Turn the word around in my mind, reading it 10 times quickly - I could start to strip away the meaning, approach it from a new perspective. Try it - say a word to yourself, in your head. Taste each sound, change in taste. Perspective. Perspective...perspective...

But even then, focus a little and the word springs back - its meaning, uses and abuses.

So I tried french, still seeking an understanding of the issue - to understand not understanding - but even as I looked at writing I couldn't read I was still thinking, ticking away. Trying to match the words back to English. Treating it almost as misspellings, trying to twist it back into understanding.

Even then, knowing that I couldn't follow it I started to piece together limited meaning. That's a regular verb, past tense I think. Reverse that word order there to make sense. In the corner there, that's a name...

Finally I ended up on a Chinese language site - finally, I had the blessed sense of blankness. I had a wall of text that meant nothing. Even the letters were wrong, and could not be fully followed. They may not have been letters - but it didn't matter.

I had found oblivion - but still I could not understand.

For I looked away, and saw a message on the board. I saw, read and understood in less time then it took to run my eyes over the whiteboard.

How do you understand someone who lacks a skill so deeply ingrained in you that you can't not use it, even if you try?

How long is your arm? How loud is your voice?

How long is your am?

Mine is about 3ft...well, between 2 and 3. Nothing to unusual...fingers, wrists...elbows. All as nature intended. Mostly. Close enough to pass as normal.

My voice though...my voice is also as nature intended - but with technology I can amplify it. I can make it audible around the world in seconds. Canada, France or Iraq - it doesn't matter, I can pick up a phone and call.

With a little more work I can setup or watch a camera feed - a second or three of lag, but otherwise real time. I can see through a planet - eat your heart out superman.

But all this is as nothing - I can not reach out and touch anyone or anything more then a yard away.

I could not stroke my own cat as she dies a planet away.

I'm sorry Jinks.

I'm sorry.

Discrimination

In my mind, "Discrimination" doesn't mean what it does to most people.

To me, its meaning very much depends on what follows...

Take this example. Go have a look - it's laughable. No, really, it is.

The summery of the article is simple - here's a few choice quotes.

..women are still being treated like second-class citizens.

men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?

What is this discrimination? Is it the subjugation of women in the kitchen? Unequal wages? Sexual slavery? Complaints about pensions being more expensive because women live longer?

Well, no. They're complaining that because they have long nails they can't use the Apple iPhone as ably the rest of humanity.

To me, this is another case of Discrimination that is so self obsessed that it's beyond belief. The people who are really discriminated against are amputees, those with neurological conditions unable to control their fingers well enough to touch tiny parts of the screen. The elderly.

To complain about discrimination because you can't use an object you chose to buy due to you also wishing to appear a certain away is, to me, insanity.

But that's just me.

Am I insane, or is it the rest of the world?

It's been a while - so I return with drugs

After my last post, I didn't quite feel like posting again for a while. It seemed to touch a nerve - or heart perhaps, mine and others.

Still, even I can't hide forever. So I return, with one of the many Opiates of the Masses - for there are, after all, so many.

This one is everywhere.

It surrounds you daily, circling your mind as it flirts with your memory. It teases from you recollections and people you've not seen for years. Today, I had another fix.

But I didn't have the week, commercial grade stuff you get on a day by day basis. This wasn't musak in a lift, rock belted out on a radio or even rap driving the sanity from your mind and driving you to kill.

This was worse. For music that you merely hear is like a touch that only ever reaches your skin. Music that you sing, that you are as it expresses hopes and dreams - that, my friends, is the thing that touches your heart and leaves you weeping.

Today, I was once again singing with the choir.

Yes, I know it was wrong. Still, I went back into that den of evil and iniquity knowing the hold it has over me.

Singing with the top tenors (not my usual second tenors....I know, unclean, unclean!) I once again fell in love. Once again, the Phantom of the Opera.

And like a drug, you can't stop there. Youtube is there, with all the songs you know and have ever heard. The Musical Addicts heroin. First, the "Music of the Night". I couldn't help myself. Then "All I Ask of You". "Point of no return"...stopping was impossible.

Till I return to the last post, with a song to pierce the heart - it always has, and always will.



Everyone has their own drug - this one is mine.

Painful words

Think of the most painful word you can.

It's not love, nor hate. Pity, guilt and joy...none of these hold the heartache.

There is one word we avoid more then any other. So much we have dozens of ways to not say it. Cya, so long, farewell...'till later...have a good time...

All ways to avoid that sentence that holds paragraphs of things unsaid and undone. Misery held in a single word, alone.

Goodbye.

Always spoken with fear - fear that we may never see someone again.

Goodbye.

Said with a strained voice. The hope that you've said enough. Voices crying to you that there is no "enough", only more things to say.

Goodbye.

You say goodbye to everyone, or them to you. Mother, lover, sister and friend. No one is there forever. Always you say-

Goodbye.

Again and again, you hope to never say it again. To see them one more time, before saying-

Goodbye.

And once again.

Goodbye.