Just a silly thought

After seeing a report on ABC about police officers being forced to have fitness tests even up till their 50's this image popped into my head:
The tv version was more amusing than the web one.

And people complain about Indian call-centres

I was doing some phone-banking today and shortly after asking my address etc the Sydney based operator asked
"So, what's the weather like?"
Me:"Well, it was bizarrely sunny for a while but now it's raining."
Her:"Is that unusual where you are?"
Me:"Well, it is the middle of winter!"
Her:"Really? It's winter there too?"

*sigh*

Scary stuff

Maybe this site worries me because I suppose I am (for some stores) such a "demon customer". Certainly I spend a lot more time looking than buying, always go after the bargain and very rarely spend all that much. I have these visions of this principle combining with the eye-reading stuff from "Minority report", creating a dystopia where the large companies ignore the poorer/non-consumeristic part of society and if you want to engage in any of the things they control you have to be a consumer. An underclass forms with its own primitive cooperative economy...Hmm. Or not.

Looking back over my spending habits there are many shops I just browsed in for years, not having the money to buy anything, and now I have a bit more money I can go in and buy stuff there. If they'd been rude when I was a poor window-shopper I might not have come back. A similar principle applies to banks etc, where people only have a small account when they're young but develop loyalty which means they open a large account there when they're old and rich. I wonder if this has occured to these companies?

Also, finally got around to reading "Dinner at Deviants Palace". Quite good, though the Evil Megolomaniac whose Plan For World Domination involves a glossolalialing fundamentalist cult and mind-altering drugs remined me ever-so-slightly of Snow Crash. (*) That and I think Tim Powers and Lois McMaster Bujold (In "Shards of Honour") have both tapped into my previously unkown but apparently deepseated fear of implacable translucent floating bloodsucking..things. *shudders*

(*)It drives Cam crazy how I always go "Ah, I've already seen this plot in such-and-such", my brains pattern-matching is a bit overactive at times. It also drives him crazy how I ruin plots, but...eh. I haven't said what kind of Evil Plans they are.

Pining For The Fjords

For anyone who reads this and is interested I've put up a page for the Terracon 2004 shirt I did.

The Wonders of Modern Food Science

These are both photos I took of foodstuffs (of a sort) which struck me as amusing. Talk about your unsubstantiated claims for health supplements
and
I think I prefer mine inorganic.. yeah, yeah, I know what they meant. It's also free of GE, fat, cholesterol, artificial colours and flavours!

Things which have suddenly occured to me

• Searching for absolute truth is like trying to catalogue the stars in an infinite and dynamic universe.
• Perspective is a side-effect of how the eye works, and doesn't really exist. (Hey, it seemed significant at the time)

Also: Furbies don't actually learn to speak from their owners. After a while, they just start speaking english regardless of what you speak to them, and in fact have no way of understanding sound apart from "That was loud".

Publishing of this blog

Since the distant wisdom version of the blog doesn't seem to allow comments, I'm currently updating the BlogSpot one.

Also, I'm going to try to not update for a while and instead put my creative energies into my Phd and writing to my poor abandoned penfriend Wanda who doesn't even know I was sick. "A while" shouldn't be that long, I have a couple of posts lined up in my head as it is. But this way I have an impetus to work so I'm allowed to post them!