Posts (page 2)
What's one family recipe that you wish you knew how to cook?
My mother has a recipe for a fondue "broth." Rather than using cheese and oil, she would make this mixture in the fondue pot. I have asked her for the recipe several times, and she always responds with "oh, it's so easy..." and then doesn't tell me how to do it.
Right, it's just a matter of today and tomorrow, and them my involvement with the U-Team is over. Finished. Done.
2 more days. 2 is a good number. Right now I cannot think of why, because I want it to be 0 right now. But these ducks seem to think that 2 is, as the old saw goes, company, while three... well, three was yesterday.
2 is being a weird day, largely because I am not at the office. It seems that the gods governing the fine art of motorcycling feel that it is a time of trials for me; on the way home yesterday my bike threw its chain, leaving me stranded around 10km from home. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, I managed to get the crippled machine back here. I will call the mechanic later (when he gets to work) to come pick her up and replace the chain. I can't afford it right now, and it is inconvenient that the second last day of my current job will be spent waiting for some guy to sort my problems out.
There are a lot of people that I am going to miss. I am not going to name them all, as displays of unbridled sentimentality are so "the old me." They know who they are, and they can rest assured that I will miss their company, if not the company where we met.
What can one do? When fate has things in store for you, you sometimes need to stop trying to swim upstream and just go with the flow - always hoping that there are no huge waterfalls around the next bend.
I have around an hour and a half to kill before I can call the mechanic. I guess I will work on my last articles here at home, in the fresh country air.
Just today and tomorrow... just today and tomorrow... just today and tomorrow...
Three bugs on a bit of veld grass. Three days under the regime of the EEBA (Eastern European Bastards Association.) Three is a good number, probably because I really like triangles. It has a significance to a great many people on a religious level, and constitues the number of participants in what is arguable the number 1 male sexual fantasy (as long as two of the three are chicks, of course.) 3 is a quarter of the number of years I have been involved in the publishing industry. It is also the number of attempts I have made at leaving the industry (with this latest one being the third.) Third time lucky, as they say.
More people have found out about my resignation in these parts (mainly because I've been telling them) and the office has a weird feel to it, which will probably mutate into a bad feeling by Wednesday. I actually don't care. I received an email in my Gmail in-box this morning giving me a full briefing on the new job, and I like what I see. It's going to offer me a whole batch of new challenges, which I need. It is going to enable me to improve my lifestyle and my overall happiness, which I want. It is going to set me up as an authority on related subjects, which I like.
Just these next three days to get through... Thursday couldn't come fast enough. Incidentally, three is also the number of folks from the original U-Team that will be leaving this week - my last day is Wednesday, and the other two have their last day as Thursday. There is a sadness here, of course. This was a great team, a team with a lot of potential who got shafted badly. I have spoken about it before... I won't do so again.
3. It's not a lot, really...
How do you handle phone calls from telemarketers?
With utter contempt.
4 days before I "fork" off. 4 prongs on each fork. 4 is the smallest number to have a whole number as its square root. Last Friday.
I would like to welcome Scotty to the Last Days club. It's his last Friday too.
I am completely uninspired today. I have no idea what to write about, so I am going to keep this short and sweet.
Oh, yeah, there were four Beatles. John, Paul, George and Retard. I hate the Beatles.
This flower, which I only know as a Bizzy Lizzy, has five petals. That's quite a coincidence, because I have five working days left here. It is... wait for it... my last Thursday.
It is believed that Thursday's name can be attriduted (like many of the names we've given our days of the week) to the ancient Norse God of Thunder, Thor. It's quite appropriate today, because it is a wet morning, The rain we have all been hoping for has arrived, and will hopefully hang around for a bit. It makes riding the bike a real chore, but I don't mind - we need the moisture!
Right, back to 5. It is the first number in the standard sequence that, when doubled, produces a double digit number (10, for those who's mathematics skills are crap.) It is also a number of religious significance (particularly to myself) for certain belief systems, considered a perfect number by some. The (misunderstood) five pointed star, or pentagram, is a symbol of this, and has been used by more religions than you would actually believe. It is also called the Star of Solomon (of the Christian Old Testament), who reputedly wore this symbol - much like David wore the six pointed star that has become the symbol of Judaism and the State of Israel.
Today marks the start of the last week I will be spending here. This time next week I will be elsewhere, facing new challenges... it's very exciting. But there are still (counting today, because it's still really early) 5 days to go. I have finished my work on my "last" issue of Unwired (although they have asked me to contribute to the magazine on a freelance basis) and I have cleaned up my desk to a point where I can "grab and run." I have done everything that is required for this cycle, basically, and so have very little left to do. The trick in this kind of situation is to look busy - purely because if I don't they will most certainly find something for me to do (which I don't want.)
I find it quite strange that the majority of the people working here still do not know that I have resigned. In previous companies everyone knew in a split second after my resignation letter hit the boss' desk. I guess it just affirms what I have been feeling for a long time - that I am not valued here. My skillset could prove very valuable to this compnay, but they have just never seen it. I have tried to point it out, but these people have their own (very set) ideas about what a consumer magazine should be (although they have no experience with the local consumer market) and they won't budge. It's not my problem anymore, sure. But I am still a little upset about it. I didn';t spend twelve years getting to where I am just to become a spare wheel in a company run by a bunch of rude foreigners. I didn't give up editorship of two well known local publications just to be grunted at and have my abilities misunderstood and ignored. The few months that I have spent here have been, in short, insulting. I will be glad to have them done with.
There are people that I will miss, of course (the Beatle-mad Scotty being top of the list) but not many. Maybe around... 5.
Six is most famous for its guest appearnace in the symbol of "ultimate evil." [Insert dramatic music] Yes, repeated three times in a row it becomes the infamous Number of the Beast (which, incedentally, adds up to 9 in numerology: 6+6+6=18, 1+8=9... and 9 is an inverted 6. Woooo, weird, eh?) The number 6 has probably been mentioned by every heavy metal band from the 80s as part of that triple digit of doom.
These Clivia lillies each have 6 petals. The other common number of petals is 5, so expect more pretty flower pictures tomorrow.
Other than that, I can't really think of too much to say about 6, other than the fact that I have 6 working days left at this company. It is the last of the days that still corresponds with another day... in other words, it is my second last Wednesday. From tomorrow onwards I can get even more annoying by not only giving the number of days I have left, but also by saying "today is my last (insert appropriate day name here.)"
Right, that's enough rubbish for one post. I eagerly await Scotty's Beatles related comment for the day. I know what it will be in two working days time, but I am not sure what he's going to come up with today.
What's one of your favorite quotes?
Submitted by Georgie-boy.
"Foul mouth? Fuck you!"
That's probably the best line EVER from a movie, delivered eloquently by Eddie Murphy in the part of Axel Foley in the Original Beverley Hills Cop. Love it!
Book: Show us a book you started reading but never finished.
I know I am about to make myself a social pariah by posting this, but I could never get through even the first part of the Lord of the Rings... to be honest, I haven't even tried the other two.
I am a keen reader, with a wide variety of tastes. Fantasy and Science Fiction are my two favourites - so one would think that I ate this one up. In truth, I could never bring myself to slog all the way through this pedantic tome. I have a very active imagination... I do not need to be spoon fed every frikken detail about every frikken bush in Middle Earth. There. I said it. I hate this book, and I hate the series.
The movies were only marginally better (although the giant swathes that Peter Jackson cut out of them probably lost a lot of the feel that the books held.) I said marginally. Elijah Woods irritates the hell out of me, especially when given the opportunity to whine as much as Frodo Baggins does. When his character in Sin City got slowly dismembered and fed to a dog I cheered loudly, not because I like gore, but because there was a slight chance that it might have been for real. Unfortunately, it was not a snuff film...
Yes, I am going to do this all the way down to one. Seven is a great number. It is, if you are into numerology, my birth number. It's a good birth number to have. It is considered a mystical number by a number of belief systems. 7 is a prime number, which is... interesting, I suppose.
This photograph shows the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, South Africa. It was officially opened on 14th December, 1949. 14 is 7 multiplied by 2, and 49 is 7 squared.
Seven has also shown up in a number of artistic titles, like the movies Se7en, the Magnificent Seven, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Anywho, I have seven working days left, and I am starting to chafe a bit. I just want these last days to go quickly. People around here are not acting differently, or anything, but I am starting to get excited about future prospects and want to get going on them.
I still have some work to do on what will be my last issue of Unwired as a member of the slowly disolving U-Team. I still have that damned article to write. In fact, I have been asked to contribute to the magazine even after I have left, as a freelance writer. The rates are good, so I will do it - extra money is always great to have, but it does make my life a little more complicated in terms of taxation. Oh well - them's the breaks.
So, yeah, 7. I am feeling a lot chirpier today, probably because I got the brakes on my motorbike fixed. That metal-on-metal scrape from the front wheel was not a comforting sound to hear. She's a 1999 Suzuki XF 650 Freewind with almost 65 000 km on the clock (that's over 40 000 miles for the Yanks.) She's old and grumpy, but she's still a good rocket, and a reliable onroad / offroad performer. Considering she was almost written off in September last year, I think she's doing perfectly. (Why "she?" I never understood that.)
Riding in to work this morning (which is generally a pre-dawn exercise to avoid the terrible Johannesburg traffic) was great fun, largely because the new brake pads and retightened chain meant that she was more responsive, and able to stop - always an advantage when barrelling along the road.
Well, that's enough from me. 7.
