Foregoing Sleep For Your Amusement #
22 November 1998
I received a couple of funny emails this weekend, which I thought I’d share with you. The first is from Martin, to whom I’d recently mailed a .wav of the Mr. Benn theme tune:
From: Smith, Martin
Sent: Mon 16/11/98 15:20
Subject: 1977In reality, I am 25 (going on 26), sitting in Toronto at my desk, wearing my suit, being a DBA. In my head, I am 4 years old, sitting in my parents house in North London, wearing my pyjamas, waiting to get dressed for playschool, watching Mr Benn. For that, I thank you.
Glad to be of help. The second refers to these pages, and is from Richard. It succinctly and politely sums up the issue that several of my recent emails have been hinting at:
From: Richard D. Hinchcliffe
Sent: Sun 22/11/98 17:43
Subject: Journal EntriesI know you have a life to live so you can write about it on the web, but I’ve noticed your journal is a week out of date and it’s monday tomorrow so it’ll probably be next weekend when you next get the chance to write. Therefore I suggest you forego any sleep tonite and instead write your journal for the general amusement of us all.
Well, OK then. I’m always willing to do anything for the general amusement of humanity, as I think I proved the time I bleached my hair…
Saturday morning I headed off to the local mall, as my mother had offered to buy me a full-length pure wool coat as an early Christmas present. Part of my brain is labouring under the impression that those who sport the trappings of business are more likely to be offered promotion (hence why I carry a briefcase to and fro, despite it’s only content being a copy of FHM and a pad of paper). The other part of my brain thinks I’m merely opening myself up to the possibility of ridicule and muggings, but anyway, it’s getting cold, so I needed/wanted a coat, and a nice Italian one I now have. Cool. My only problem now is finding somewhere to store the thing at the office.
I found it difficult to choose a coat from those on offer, as they didn’t seem to come with a list of specifications or bullet-pointed features (unlike, say, a motherboard or graphics card). My mother did her best to explain some of the design features, but it still seemed to be slightly illogical and subjective, so I just plumped for one that felt comfortable, from a reputable chain.
My only other purchases were some novelty cufflinks and bow-tie for the forthcoming company ’end-of-year party’ (Christmas, presumably, having been replaced by the multi-denominational and slightly bizarre ‘Winterval’).
Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing the majority of my nieces and nephews, and the remainder visited today, so it’s been a pretty successful/exhausting weekend on the family front. My eldest nephew (age 5.67y) made me laugh when his mother suggested he invite a friend round for tea next week:
“No, no, I can’t invite him round for tea.” “Why not,” asks my sister, “I thought he was your pal?” “Yeah, he is. But I’ve told him that I have live dinosaurs living at my house. If he comes round to tea, he’ll see that I haven’t!”
I was even more amused to discover that his friend has an ice-skating rink in his loft…
What else have I been up to? Not much really, just reading some magazines and surfing. A computer mag sent me a free CD as a thank-you for renewing my subscription. I know that I probably shouldn’t get excited about 80-odd truetype fonts, but I’ve always thought fonts are fun things, since my days on an Amiga 500. I was tempted to write one of those long Word documents showing each and every font, but the prospect bores me. I’m sure it must be possible to automate the procedure with a bit of VBA - any ideas?
Uh, will this do for now? I’d really like some sleep, if that’s OK with you guys. I’ve updated my links page, so go interrupt somebody else’s life. Oh, or you could take a look at some recent photos…