Tuesday, April 29

multitasking and messaging

Craig Ferguson addressing the White House. That's either a sign we're all doomed, or something else. To be fair, he does at least as good a job of it as most of his predecessors, and has made himself very presentable compared with his early days on Scottish telly.

On youtube this morning I was watching his speech to the white house correspondents dinner, in the company of Bush etc., while eating breakfast, messaging people on 3 continents, and blogging under 2 names. Just out of bed, and I'm Multitasking already. If I wanted this much stress I would have chosen to work a full-time job.

I'm still new to IM - learning a whole new may of relating. My nephew is now in New Zealand, and after his recent visit here we now MSN a lot.

The Duneditin conference is getting quite heavily booked but there are still places available. Hope to see you there. Lee Ann may attend via videoconference.

Monday, April 21

one dog knight

As it was my birthday, and as a dry run for the conference festivities, I decided to give the non-Erdinger Weissbier another try. It is growing on me and I managed a whole third of a bottle without getting silly. What a shame they don't make an alco-free version.

Bumped into the deifheids yesterday, fortunately it was in a noisy cafe so nobody could be heard (thus giving deifheids an insight into what it's like for the rest of us). Visited three art galleries. After a lifetime of philistinism, I'm learning to enjoy pictures, though I still haven't a clue about art.



The mother outlaw sent me a parcel with a hat and a book of the most appalling poetry. Both of which I would blog if I could be bothered. The partner in bliss gave me a tiny camera, which'll be handy for photographing other presenters at the conference.

Spent most of this morning swimming 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles for imperialists), then slept all afternoon. A balanced day.

Life In Cold Blood ep 2 tonight. I'm cooking snags, spuds and spinach. I wonder what catering arrangements hotboy has made for July.

Wednesday, April 16

habits of effective people

I was reading a blog post about dealing with visitors with bad habits. I find the most effective strategy for meeting people on your own terms is to avoid knowing anyone.

If you can't do that, make sure Cap'n Kev is in Queensland and Spud's brother's in Arizona, flogging spiral manadalas to the indians. I've got a whole two weeks off work, and I don't have to spend it with anyone!

I've been able to get on with some vital work. The plastic bags are sorted into large and small piles; ditto the rubber bands. Of course you need three separate classifications when it comes to paper clips.

Here's a treat, some old xmas cards, photographed on their way to the bin. Everything becomes garbage one day.


Saturday, April 12

great news

What a fortunate creature I am! I've been given an opportunity to deliver my conference paper on Ralwin's Postulate in the northern hemisphere, at this year's Duneditin conference.

Thursday, April 10

quote

Too lazy to blog anything more than a quote:


After a while, marriage is a sibling relationship - marked by occasional, and rather regrettable, episodes of incest

(Martin Amis in Yellow Dog)

Sunday, April 6

the balanced mongrel

Labradors are straightforward to train.

They don't start to train themselves like kelpies (Australian collies) do.





My dog's half lab, half kelpie. It's perfectly balanced. Its kelpie side knows how to train itself, but its lab side can't be bothered.

A human equivalent would be a cross between a Bavarian and a blissheid.

Thursday, April 3

electrode HNT

I volunteered as a guinea pig for a research project where they wire you up with electrodes all over your body (all above the waist unfortunately) then they give you psychotherapy. The deal is that I get free head-fixing (not that I need it) and they get free electrical data on the psychotherapeutic process. A win-win situation. Naturally I had to pretend to be a bit psycho to get on the program but that's easy for me.





Actually they wire the therapist up too, and all the wires disappear into a computer. To break the ice, I said "I've seen this movie, it's the one where the computer blows a fuse and my personality gets sucked into your brain, and vice versa".




HNT_1


If you're desperate, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts.

Tuesday, April 1

bliss pill research

This is me doing volunteer work as a guinea pig.

It's a research project where they wire you up with electrodes to investigate why people who take bliss pills don't need to meditate.

The headband helps prevent the brain exploding with pleasure. What a fortunate creature one is!