Thought for the day

Thoughts for the day should be obviously true and sound like they're meaningful while actually not being.

"Coop's bags say their products aren't tested on animals. Do they not sell dog food and flyswatters?"

CTS Innmoot

And after some doubt and democracy, there was a vast horde of CTS descending on the castle. Richard and Eni and Naath had just finished exams, most people had finished exams ages ago. Special guest stars were Owen and Emperor who are old CTS people but haven't been able to come in my memory. It was a very jolly crowd, I reiterate how much I love it :)

Thought for the day

The universe is 0.5 Zettaseconds old.

For Mair, Dungarees in the Wild, My life as a dungaree hunter

Several people have commented that my journal is too prosaic, and my prose too sane, and that I'm altogether not confusing enough[1]. Hence I reproduce, in response to the link text of the beautiful picture Dungarees in the wild, the comment I found myself making.

My wife is a maths teacher, and even she doesn't get as odd looks as I do when people ask what my job is. "I thought they were... made. Out of cloth," people say with a puzzled expression.

"Oh no!" I always respond. "People have tried to make artificial dunagarees, but no manufactured process could approach nature's elegance. It's like haggis, you have to go out and catch a wild one."

I find a spot in the woods, lay out a bit of denim for bait, and wait on my folding chair. The wild dungaree doesn't have very good eyesight or smell, so I don't have to hide, but it's incredibly fast and slippery, the only way is for me to pounce and wrestle it into submission.

They're basically just bags of skin. Skeletally thin (not much denim to be had these days, the denim bush has died of as people found a way to weave *that*), they're bags of guts that squish under your hands. Get them round the neck and kneel on the the legs, and try to slit their throat.

Then skin them as soon as possible. The innards are discarded easily, as if they were bread to be separable, and you have a pair of dungarees. You can wear them right then, and most hunters make it a point of pride to come in wearing a new pair when they've had a good hunt, though in fact you need considerable drying and tanning before they're fit to be sold.

I often don't catch one -- the rarity is why they're so highly priced by fasionable women -- but only occasionly does anything do wrong. They're not that vicious but completely unlovable, so I never normally feel guilty, except once.

Dungarees mate -- or bud, we're not sure -- underground, and generally the children fend for themselves, but occasionally a (female?) dungaree will stay to try to feed the young. When I was a green hunter I killed a dungaree without knowing any of the signs, and as I was tramping out of the woods, half a dozen baby dunagarees frollicked out of the trees and began nuzzling round by denim clad legs, asking for food.

I was gobsmacked, these things were cute, and I couldn't bring myself to kill them, even if I could have caught them. (Dungarees for babys come from one fo the dwarf species of dungaree, or from adults which are cut down too much in processing. Immature dungarees are hard to catch and moult too much to useful as clothing.)

I fished out the rest of my bait and fed it to them, and they seemed content. Most wandered back into the wood, but one insisted on following, until I picked him up and let him ride on my shoulder.

Now he lives in my house, brought out to show doubters. He hasn't grown much in all the years, but has shown his worth -- even a small dungaree coming in at neck height is enough to deter all but the most determined salesman!

[1] Irony.

Can I spell that for you?

If you don't know whether someone has your name on a computer in front of them or not, is there any polite way to spell it or offer to spell it?

* Trust them to ask if necessary. But then if they do need to write it down they often don't ask and get it wrong.
* Just spell it. This seems pushy, especially if they already know because the phone number, or first two letters, or whatever, is enough to bring up an existing record in their database, or aren't ready to write it down yet.
* Say "Can I spell that for you?" This is what I normally do, and has worked up to now, when someone said no, he was fine. No you're not! I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice, but there's no way of telling the spelling from the pronunciation.
* Say "It's an unusual spelling, if you don't know it already I'll have to spell it for you. I'm sorry this sentence is so long, but I have to explain that I'm not implicitely assuming ignorance on your part,"

Perhaps I should stick with #3. After all, it's reasonable that if someone assumes you can tell them it's unusual. But I have a particularly adverse reaction to people correcting assumptions, it always seems implicitely insulting.

Or go with 4. But it seems too much of a mouthful, that can't be fun for them either.

Mum, what do you do?

Hello? Is that, cambridgeshire, earth?

I always try to make my rants on phone menus interesting, and it seems I always fail. Everyone hates them, why are my parodies not funny, when people applaud the weirdest of other things I write?

A.*bring bring*
Q. Hello! You've reached Acme, corp. How can we help you?
A. I'm sorry, my foo is blarging.
Q. Your foo? Oh, you should probably talk to the cambridge office.
A. OK.
Q. *disconnects you*
A. *redials*
Q. Hello! You've reached Acme, corp. How can we help you?
A. Hi! I think I should speak to the cambridge office. My foo is blarging.
Q. Of course.
A. *bring bring*
Q. Mwgseep thwockpop shaft.
A. Hello?
Q. THWOCKPOP! Shaft <> greefle! SNWWAAAAAAAFWAT!
A. *click* *redials*
Q. Hello! You've reached Acme, corp. How can we help you?
A. I was just disconnected. A voice said "THWOCKPOP! Shaft <> greefle! SNWWAAAAAAAFWAT!"
Q. Oh dear. Did you call our Magellanic Cloud operator? And call it an "hello"?
A. I asked to speak to the cambridge office.
Q. You should have been more specific.
A. I'm sorry! Your website, yellow pages entry, and interminable hold music made no mention of the fact that I was reaching a generic phone number for the organisation! I know that's not your fault, but if you publish that number as the number for Acme, Cambridge, CB4 nAA, surely someone should be in charge of telling people how to route calls?
 I will gladly tell you what's relevant so I can be forwarded, but I have no way of knowing what is! Which Acme problems are serviced by which Acme phone numbers is unfortunately not taught at school, nor by any of the information I could extract from your website.
Q. Of course, I'll forward your suggestion. Shall I connect you to the (earth) cambridge office now?
A. Please.
Q. Boston, Gloustershire, or Cambridgeshire?

In retrospect, it's another aspect of being disturbed by ignorance. I don't like feeling ignorant when I don't know how much detail I have to tell the poor overworked operator to get to the right person, nor to imply they're ignorant when they don't know.