June 29, 2003
Here I am again in this mean old town
So I've snuck back to Blogger tonight to see if it really was as bad as I'd led myself to believe. And I'm remembering how much I liked the no-frills, no-fuss simplicity of Blogspot. I see they've even redesigned the user interface--it's not bad.
I feel as guilty as hell but I think I prefer Blogger to Movable Type. I mean, do I really need a 'Recent entries' and 'Last five comments' feature? Not really. In fact I'm a bit belled and whistled out. Perhaps I haven't given it enough of a chance. But--and no offence to my gracious host at Ubersporting Towers--it just took so much longer to update, which I found pretty frustrating.
So many thanks to Scott for the experience and all his trouble, but...I sort of feel at home back here. (And apologies to anyone who recently edited their blogroll on my account.)
update: Of course, tonight of all nights, Blogger is practically grinding to a halt, and Enetation (comments) and Bravenet (statistics) are down, so now I look stupid, eh?
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June 19, 2003
Onwards and upwards
I wasn't going to announce the move until I was happy with the new site, or for that matter had posted something interesting, but what the heck. Arrivederci, Blogspot. she sells sanctuary can now be found here. (A big thank-you to Scott for letting me shack up at Ubersporting Towers. I'll try not to trash the joint.)
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June 18, 2003
Feel the love
Well, read about it anyway. Here's 300 love letters. (via Anne).
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Got me
I've been known to bash the pomo-bashers in the past, so I thought I'd better earmark Rob's pomo-bashing piece now and come back to it later....once I've figured out how I can simultaneously agree with Rob while maintaining my rosy view of postmodernism (...argh).
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June 17, 2003
Reclaim the sheets
Writers in New York and Newtown are doing it for themselves.
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Big Brother is a classy show. No, really!
Carita and Tim both wrote about Australia’s supposedly classless society the other day. Tim seems to agree with John Howard’s line that Australia is ‘relatively classless’ (relative to England, that is). I tend to share Carita's view that class conflict is always silently lurking beneath that 'egalitarian' surface. (I also agree with Tim Dymond (on Tim's thread) who questions whether 'egalitarian' is a euphemism for 'homogenised'.)
I've been thinking of the class conflicts in Big Brother 2003. Kimmie, the hairdresser from Armidale with the tasteless jokes, has whinged several times to fellow working-class housemate, Regina implying that some of the other housemates are snobs. For instance, Kimmie, who works as a hairdresser, sniped to Regina, "I mean, I’ve never money, I’ve never had a new car, you know?". Regina, who works in a fish and chip shop, made sympathetic noises.
It's interesting to note that ocker Reggie is by far the people’s choice in this competition. Why is that, I wonder? Perhaps because she’s your typical average Aussie everywoman who tells it like it is. Or maybe it's because she’s on an existential trip in the House, and she's happy to take us along for the ride. She’s "real". It's "Reggie - On How Life Is". And, of course, Australians just love someone who has no airs about them.
By comparison, posh Joanne, the lawyer closely resembling Pamela Andersen, on Sunday night fell victim to Blonde Poppy Syndrome, booted off with a record 86% disapproval rating. Subtly demonstrating the latent class conflict in the competition, interviewed on TV the other night Jo’s grandmother sniffed, "Well, Tasmania [Reggie's state of origin] had a lot of convicts...So I want South Australia [Joanne's] to win." And she was dead serious, too, I reckon.
But Joanne's real crime was to prance about in pink frilly knickers a lot, and manage to break all the hearts in the house (three, at last count). Teenage girls make up the BB voting audience, so the jealousy factor ensured her swift defeat once nominated.
(Off topic, but brokenhearted 19-year-old Saxon has to be the most wistful Australian male I’ve seen on TV so far. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy cry for a girl like that. Ahh, it was touching...then again, I'm a sucker for romance.)
While I'm on the subject of BB, I think I was too hard on Kimmie the other day. After all, I guess she’s only thoughtlessly repeating dumb attitudes she’s absorbed from peers and family and local society her whole life. I am prepared to concede that everyone says something stupid now and then. A genuine apology when she is evicted would be good, though.
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June 15, 2003
Forces of nature
This is fascinating, I think.
Paul Rainey from the University of Auckland...creates re-runs of evolution using miniworlds of identical bacteria. Under similar conditions, he finds the microbe clones he starts with in each 'replay' [of evolution] invariably evolve into the same two new types of bacteria...The research is part of mounting evidence that although evolution is based on random outcomes, some outcomes--like having eyes--are more likely than others."
Scientists argue that this is evidence that a 'hand of God' is not necessary for seemingly divine evolutionary outcomes. It's classic Darwinism:
"There are certain designs that work better than others, Professor Rainey said. "Some are so good that when they arise they become prominent because the individual expressing this trait has a high probability of being successful and having more offspring."
The twist is the idea that any number of mutations along genetic pathways will still ultimately lead to the same few highly adaptive--and predictable--outcomes.
But the headline, 'Scientists find a way for religion to exist even if humanity didn't', is misleading, since the story itself says that the invention of religion is a direct result of the evolution of a big enough humanoid brain. Another scientist, Robin Dunbar from the University of Liverpool, says religion is a way for humans to keep each other in line and to create a sense of community:
"Gods are created by big brains to prevent free riders benefiting from cooperative society without paying the costs. [And] it's surely no coincidence that most religions involve practices such as flagellation or long periods spent singing or dancing, which trigger a flood of endorphins, whose opiate-like effects make us feel relaxed at peace with those we share the experience with."
Personally, I can vouch for the effects of singing and dancing (if not flagellation). But the problem with the "altruistic societies are benefited by religion" theory is that it doesn't explain fundamentalism. Though maybe this is only because the world is still carved up into competing societies. If a truly altruistic global society evolved (the holy grail of fans of globalisation), perhaps a unifying pan-religion would emerge too. In the meantime, unfortunately, bigger brains will be needed before the human race can adequately deal with the mutant, maladaptive forms of religion.
Can't wait.
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June 14, 2003
Ahhh...
By the way, my email account is working fine again, so feel free to write. (If you're emailing me from somewhere like, say, Hotmail, please put the word 'sanctuary' in the subject line so I don't mistake you for spam. And whatever you do, don't have a subject line that says something like "Gianna, they will start calling you horsey".)
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June 13, 2003
The merry-go-round
First Jonathan, now George. Sigh. But I predict Gareth won't shut up for long! I give him a couple more days.
Oh well, blogging's such a fickle thing. You lose some, you win some. There's always new people to discover--like Jonas (who's pretty damn funny), Anne (the life of an over-40 femme) or Maud (who's prolific and literary--one of my favourite combinations). Well, I actually found Maud ages ago but misplaced her, and then I found her again via splinters, which I found via Gary, who I found via...Oh, you know.
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If only she had kept her mouth shut
Talk about stealing the limerick limelight off Hillary...
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Wired
I don't want to sound paranoid (it's not about me), but was Jozef making fun of me with this post the day after I wrote about the Doors' Strange Days?
Strange Plasma Logic
Strange websites have found us
strangewebsites have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
our casual joys
But we will go on blogging
or find a new town.
*Doors Down Under
Oh well, in the same spirit I offer up this little known version of David Byrne's immortal song, Psycho Blogger:
Can't see your face up in my stats
Tense and nervous
Can't relax
Can't sleep
Blog's on fire
Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire...
By the way, it's good to see Jozef's blog working again. Even Blogger permalinks seem to be working fine lately (just in time for my move over to Movable Type, natch).
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June 12, 2003
Sweet little heartbreaker
The perils of internet dating:
"There was this connection I felt," [she] said. "Unfortunately, there were 50 of us who felt it."
Well, you know what they say: two's company, fifty's a crowd.
She recognizes that it seems absurd to agree to marry someone who you had never met in person, to trust a relationship built on e-mails and trans-Atlantic phone calls. But she said you had to be there and feel the seductive pull of his flowery words. "We are not a group of stupid, naive women," she said. "We are bright, intellectual, professional women. I can't tell you how much he wooed us with his words. He made us feel like goddesses, fairy princesses, Cinderellas. We had all found our Superman, our knight in shining armor."
Bright, intellectual women who have read a few too many Mills & Boons, perhaps. So just how seductive were those flowery words?
"What proceeded were the most intoxicating love letters," she said. "He wrote better than Yeats. He wrote better than Shakespeare. He totally intoxicated you with his feelings: 'Oh, baby, I want to tell you how much I miss you.' 'I can't wait to get home to you.'"
I don't know about you, but I'm sold.
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Morning glory
HR has just been around to present me with a bottle of champagne to 'celebrate' my first year at this firm. Christ, it's been a year already--if nothing else that's enough to make me want to drown my sorrows. Actually at first I thought it was a reward, positive reinforcement for the fact that I've been getting in before 8am for the past couple of weeks. You see, it's not good enough for me to just get in on time now. I have to go to the other extreme and be the first person here. But in fact I've started to like getting in early. I leave the house at 6:30am and walk in, which takes a good hour, and then I can sit in peace and have my Vegemite bagel and cappuccino while reading the news on the net--and all completely guilt-free. (Well, almost.) Maybe I really have ironed out that particular quirk. Bloody hell. You watch though, I'll be late tomorrow...because I'll have a hangover.
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June 11, 2003
Courting success
My sister, who is about six months away from practising family law, has been looking for something interesting to fill the gap. So this week she has started work as a court monitor at the Supreme Court. "Great," I said. "You can tell me things and I can blog about them." Maybe it's time to buy this teeshirt. (And that's all for today, I promise.)
update: This is my sister, by the way. She made a brief foray into blogging but (perhaps wisely) got out before she got hooked!
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Ford Perfect
I can't believe I have only just discovered this guy! (via Dale, but I have a hazy idea that Boynton has mentioned him before too.) He's also a freelance writer with a cool pitch which includes the statement "I will not work for defense industry clients or health insurance firms", so I like him even more for that.
update: I've got it! Wasn't he the guy who created the poem generator?
update 2: Still there. Now laughing at his American Military Operation Name Generating Device.
update 3: And this is so up my alley, Dale! Choice.
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A hit and myth affair
The Sydney Morning Herald seems to be the only news site carrying details of the latest Saddam sighting:
In New York, Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, said Saddam has $US1.3 billion ($A1.99 billion) in cash, is bent on revenge and believes he can "sit it out and get the Americans going". The ousted Iraqi leader has been sighted on several recent occasions moving in an arc from Diyala, north-east of Baghdad, around the Tigris River toward his hometown of Tikrit and into the Dulaimi areas to the west of the Tigris, Chalabi said. "Now, he's put a price on American soldiers. He will pay bounty for every American soldier killed in Iraq now. This has been spread around in the western part of the country," Chalabi told the Council on Foreign Relations.
Kaiser Soze, anyone?
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Bandits on the run
Congrats to the National Australia Bank for announcing it plans to remove automatic teller machines from gambling venues. The move has incensed pokies stakeholders such as Bruce Mathieson, who said:
"If they want to pull out their ATMs they should get out of gaming, full stop. What's the difference between having an ATM in a venue and funding the entire operation?" he said. "I want to know their stance in financing gambling operations and facilities in Australia . . . you can't have your cake and eat it."
Yeah, I want to know more about that too. But it's a good start.
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Nipped in the bud
Yobbo has the background on the scandal surrounding the Big Brother contestant whose offensive jokes were somewhat post-emptively cut from the show. Apparently Geoff Clark has accepted Channel 10’s apology on behalf of indigenous Australians. He also went one step further:
ATSIC leader Geoff Clark has issued an invitation to Big Brother housemate Kim to accompany him on a visit to indigenous communities after her racist remarks on the reality television show.
Don’t forget to take the cameras, guys. Actually I’ve often thought reality TV could play a socially constructive role in exposing the conditions suffered by certain minorities. It sure did in Woomera recently.
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Avec amour
Woody Allen wants us to 'pull together' to heal the Franco-American rift.
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You don't say
Sometimes it's what is not said that is most revealing. Look at the semantics in this comment from Hans Blix:
[Blix] said he was not inclined to accuse US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of a lack of sincerity. "I think they believed, believed in what they saw, and I think Tony Blair clearly believed in what they saw, but some of the material did not hold water," he said.
The implication is that he’s sure about Blair's motivation, but not Bush's.
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June 10, 2003
Butt...it's so funny!
Our Kylie is to become the new bum the butt of all jokes the new face of British Airways.
"Kylie is the ideal choice because she is the perfect antidote to winter gloom," the EMI source said.
Meanwhile Our Nicole has been cracking up in all the wrong places while watching a performance of the Albert Camus play Caligula. The lead actor, who could hear her guffaws throughout his performance, said, "I don't think Camus actually intended it to be funny. After all, it is a tragedy." Maybe she's been hanging out with Kylie-the-Antidote-to-Winter-Gloom for too long.
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Shocked by the powers
You would have heard by now that Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification has forbidden the Sydney Film Festival from screening the controversial film Ken Park. The Festival will appeal the decision, as you'd hope.
The film contains scenes of actual sexual activity involving characters who are portrayed as minors. It reportedly includes scenes of explicit sex, bondage and auto-erotic asphyxiation. "In the classification board's view, this film deals with matters of sex in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults", [the board] said.
I have a big problem with this kind of censorship. First, a film festival is not supposed to only screen films that are representative of mainstream community standards, but also films which challenge you, which explore taboos and marginalised experience. Geez, if you want mainstream, go to Hoyts, where you can take your pick of any number of extremely violent, brain-numbingly stupid flicks. It's a complete hypocrisy that 'community standards' hold that simulated gratuitous violence is not harmful, but non-simulated non-gratuitous (ie, it is crucial to the story) sex is. When I was studying psych I read plenty of research that found that while prolonged exposure to the consumption of violent genres (Arnie et al) did not have an effect on most people, it definitely had an effect on some viewers, namely, males who scored high on psychoticism. Exposure to gratuitous violence was also found to contribute to the acceptance of violence as a means of conflict resolution in those subjects.
No sex, please, we're Australian
Meanwhile Australia seems to get a bit confused about its attitude towards films depicting real sex. For example, Baise Moi was off limits, but Kerry Fox's 'performance' in Intimacy was not.
Personally, I am embarrassed that I am not allowed to see Ken Park and that the Government feels I need to be protected from offence. Talk about a nanny state.
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June 08, 2003
A deep blue funk
I thought coming up to the internet cafe today and having a little post might cheer me up but it hasn't. Too much on my mind and nothing's making any sense anymore.... Free people are free to make mistakes...but do I have to be so damn good at it? Ah, self-sabotage, an art form I have perfected, apparently. Just checked hotmail again but there was only one email, something that sounded promising from "Warren'": "Here is happiness". Unfortunately, it was about hair loss, one loss I don't seem to suffer from.
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Unlock the Doors again
Tim at the Road to Surfdom mentioned in passing recently he'd never much been into The Doors. As a Doors fan from about the age of thirteen, I was mystified. (And Tim usually has such impeccable judgment!). The Doors featured in my life again through the early Nineties, when my friend Biggles sang the part of Jim Morrison in the Australian Doors Show (one of the more successful cover bands during the 80s and 90s phenomenon of cover bands). Biggles has an incredible voice and stage presence and he made a very convincing Jim. It meant he got paid nicely to travel the world and play to packed houses in some of the best venues, as well as being a real education in performance. (Incidentally, Cabbage, who I've mentioned before, was the drummer in the act.)
Strange days have found us
strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
our casual joys
But we will go on playing
or find a new town.
Anyway, suffice to say I've listened to the Doors a lot in the past. But LA Woman is a song that still gives me goosebumps, especially when it's played loudly enough. And the album Strange Days, for example, contains some beautiful lovesongs--You're Lost, Little Girl, Moonlight Drive, I Can't See Your Face In My Mind. Three decades old and not at all dated now.
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Wise guy
I put Loverama on last night for the first time in ages. Years ago I loved Bris Vegas band Custard. The now-defunct band was fronted by Dave McCormack, who was married to Emma Tom (a writer at The Australian who, in typical synchronicitous blogger-style, Ken has just blogged about).
There's a lot of very catchy pop songs on the record, such as Nervous Breakdance, Correctional Facility of Love, or Funny. But my favourite would have to be track eleven, Genius. The guy can write lovesongs, that's for sure. The album ends with the words ...and nostalgia is all I've got left to look forward to. Ha, so true.
I listened to Custard a lot in the days when I was convinced I was a scriptwriter, back in 1998. I was living out near my uni, Macquarie, which is north of Sydney, basically in the bush. The AFTRS library is on Macquarie's campus so I used to load up with books on screenwriting and go home and make notes. I listened to Ben Harper a lot back then (well, I still do, actually; I've never met a Ben Harper song I didn’t like). I hung around at Independent Filmmakers (if) magazine for about a year, being a volunteer, doing some subbing and stuff. Editors David and Stephen would roll their eyes whenever I crapped on about the script I was working on, but I was possessed. I became so obssessed about my script (which never amounted to much more than a bunch of yellow Post-It notes) that I dropped out of uni, took a train up to Byron Bay and walked up and down the beach with my dictaphone. Later, on the tapes though, all I could hear was the surf! I can't even remember what the script was about, but I know it was pretty dumb. Something about a boy and a girl--no doubt.
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A conspicuous absence
The house is empty again. Stuart came by today to pick up his furniture that I'd been storing for him--the sofa, the dining table and chairs, the nice writerly desk, some lamps and stuff. Leaving me with...not much. It's kind of tragic, but romantic too, or so I like to think. Strangely enough I could actually blame Harry M. Miller for this turn of events: Stuart's flatmate is taking her furniture and moving in with Harry, and so Stuart needs his own stuff back sooner than we'd expected.
I've never really accumulated much stuff, anyway. Mainly it's because I've travelled a fair bit and moved house a lot. And I've frequently lived with people who already had everything...or people who hocked everything I had...
I still have everything I need, really. Books and music, a computer, a couple of TVs and a video, a stereo, two cats. I don't mind because I'm not a materialist and the less you have, the easier it is to pack up your troubles in your old kit bag...and just take off (ie. the escape fantasy). But what goes around, comes around: The extra TV (like, I really need two...) and the video were given to me last weekend at my friend Jana's farewell BBQ. She's off to Paris, possibly for good, with her French amour Daniel. Au revoir, mon cheries. Say g'day to Monsieur Chirac for me.
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June 06, 2003
Ruin or rapture?
Came across this list today. It's not really the ideal soundtrack to she sells sanctuary, though I do have some of these albums (don't we all). Last night I was thinking a lot about music. I'm probably a bit of a music snob, I think, so I've always thought it was a given that I would end up with someone who appreciates the same kind of music as me. (Well, not really a music snob, just that music plays such a major role in my life.) So I wonder...how important is it that you share the same musical taste as your partner? Maybe it's an unrealistic expectation to have. I don't know.
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How to lose a guy
Oh, so sad but true (clickthru the ad for a Salon daypass). If anyone wants to offer up any stories of their own, I'm all ears...
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Comeback again
Beazley:
"I know I can beat John Howard"
Yup, as we all know he's certainly demonstrated that several times.
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Deep and meaningless?
My horoscope today:
"You only think that you're getting away with something. Reasonable people have only so much patience. Turn this script into a wild comedy before it becomes an impossible melodrama."
I don't believe in astrology, by the way. But I don't mind reading horoscopes because they're just vague feelgood motivational messages. Insofar as we impose meaning on them, they are interesting in that the way you interpret the message tends to reveal the workings of your subconscious.
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June 05, 2003
A new leash on life
I’m trying to make sense of Bettina Arndt’s piece today entitled Young men in fear of a life stifled by marriage. She claims married men are under the thumb these days:
If men ever dared to reflect wistfully on former glories of patriarchy, high on the list would be the freedom once enjoyed by the man of the house to come and go as he pleased. That's long gone. The married man today rarely has rights to control his own leisure. Hell, no. He's now on a leash, a very short leash.
She then claims that this short leash is the reason why less young married men are visiting brothels (though she notes older men still do; it isn't made clear whether they are married, but if so, I guess the leash gets longer with age):
Are men being scared off by concerns about sexually transmitted diseases? Or is that there's no longer any need to pay for sex, given the abundance of willing women? Perhaps, but there's also the interesting possibility that men simply aren't being allowed the unrestricted leisure that they once enjoyed. Men's unrestricted leisure time has been shrinking for some time.
Let’s not even talk about the bizarre suggestion that modern women are so promiscuous, they are basically glorified prostitutes. Arndt continues:
When the American National Marriage Project surveyed young men about their marriage intentions last year, they found "the freedom of not having to be responsible to anyone else" as one main reason men were reluctant to marry. The researchers concluded that "like Henry Higgins, these young men fear losing their solitary pleasures by 'letting a woman in their life' ". Who can blame them?
So let me see if I’ve got this straight. If women would only let their men go to the pub more often, they could more easily enjoy illicit sex with prostitutes their solitary pleasures, and therefore they would be more keen to get married in the first place. Um, sorry…to me this is a very peculiar argument. Anyway, how does she explain the fact that young women, too, are marrying later? So they don’t have to give up their gigolos?
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All is lost? No!!!
Please forgive me if you've emailed me lately and haven't received a response. As I said, I let my ISP account lapse because I forgot to pay a bill (what can I say? stupid me...). However, it turns out messages are getting through after all--I was wrong, my email account is still alive and kicking and my ISP tells me I will be able to access all my email files when I reconnect (hopefully soon...the waiting's killing me). Once again, apologies for being confused/confusing. Please stay in touch.
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It ain't necessarily Joe
Is this the same Joseph Gutnick as
this? Weird.
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Moving on
I've had a couple of dates lately with a new guy. He's in his early forties (good), divorced (great), beardless (tolerable), has to fly into Sydney to see me (good; I'm a commitment phobic, remember?). But would you believe he votes Liberal? Still, part of the fun is the idea of converting him, haha. Anyway, see what happens.
That's all I'm gonna blog about it though. What, you don't think I learnt anything last time? Let's see if I can shut up about it, anyway.
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June 04, 2003
Down down under
I haven't been hitting the high notes lately, imo, but today's message from Beliefnet is quite comforting:
We should surrender our intention to selfishly seek merit and recognition for our merit, and instead simply plant merit and cultivate wisdom.
-Jae Woong Kim, "Polishing the Diamond"
Easier said than done though.
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Just good company
Did anyone else read Ross Gittins on globalisation? I basically agree with his position, though I still think the rich world can do a lot more to facilitate the environmental and social outcomes Gittins talks about.
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They've killed Kenny!
...or so it seems. How long is access to Troppo Armadillo going to be verboten? I'm missing my daily dose of Ken and, lately, Geoff. Also having trouble with Rob's site today.
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Lightin' up, baby
Yobbo and Stew are having a spat about smokers. I'm a very light smoker (yeah, it's a turnoff, I know) but I have a pet hate for people who walk along the street smoking or throw their butts still lit into those street bins where they set fire to all the other butts. Smokers can bang on all they like about civil liberties but they don't do themselves any favours when they blatantly disregard non-smokers' right to fresh air.
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June 03, 2003
For whom the blog rolls
Someone asked me who I blog for. I think maybe I blog for other bloggers, since it's such a labour of love for many of us. (Some less than others, granted.) Actually I find blogless readers almost to be cheating, especially when they just silently surf you and don't comment. (Hint: Bloggers love comments!) 'Course, readers of any kind are welcome, but since this form is kind of a dialogue, it's nice when people tell you what they think. By the same token, I much prefer blogs that have a comments facility. Hell, even Tim Blair has got one now, despite his self-confessed preference for crushing dissent. (Message for Stew, you need a comments facility! Get with the program!).
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Meta head
The inner critic: "Oh for god's sake, Gianna, write something of substance!"
OK, OK.... but meanwhile, here's a little meta poll:
Kinder surprise
Well blow me....I don't know if anyone remembers but ages ago (OK, a few months--but blogmonths are equivalent to real-world years, huh) I blogged about some of the German folksongs my dad used to sing. And today, someone has googled for "interpretation+es+waren+zwei+koenigskinder". Amazing.
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Later, dudes
I’m having blogging-withdrawal symptoms serious enough to warrant me coming in to work early just so I can catch up on all my favourite bloggers and see if anyone’s been kind enough to leave me comments here, and possibly even to post something new. However, I only managed to briefly check in at Tim’s before the server crashed and so now I’m stuck typing in Word.
Still, this earlybird behaviour can only please the practice group leader here at work, a man with whom I have something of a personality clash and who has over the past year displayed a rather unhealthy obsession with my punctuality (or rather, lack thereof). In fact, in recent times being five minutes late to work has resulted in first a pre-deployed informal warning and then a written warning last week. Geez. My own boss, a lovely man for whom I have worked for about three years (we went down with the Andersen ship last June and came to this firm with our team), is laissez faire towards my quirks and has told HR that he doesn’t have a problem with my punctuality because I ‘more than make up for it in other ways’. However, the practice group leader has taken it upon himself to discipline me, despite the fact that I was probably late to pre-school and despite my protestations during the informal meetings that humans are not machines and about the work/life balance. I think I amused everyone at the meetings by melodramatically announcing my lateness was 'pathological' and that I should probably go live in Africa where five minutes either way isn’t the end of the world.
Being disconnected at home has been incredibly frustrating, especially since lately I’ve been to busy to blog from work. But it’s only going to be a few more weeks til I’m back in action, so please don’t forget me, guys…Once I’m back online I plan to take up Scott’s kind offer of some space at uebersportingpundit (oh, the irony! I’m more of an untersportingpundit, y’see) so that I can ditch BuggerBlogger and try MT. (Update: um, Scott, you've been hacked again...should I reconsider?)
Anyway, to cut a long and probably boring story short, here I sit at 8am, turning over a new leaf…
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June 02, 2003
Freedom of speech fries
McDonalds Italy is suing an Italian food critic, Eduardo Raspelli for $25 million for saying their burgers are rubbery and their chips taste like cardboard. I would've thought this falls under 'fair comment' for restaurant critics - any of you lawyerly types care to explain?
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