2009 — 6 August: Thursday
Another day of minor achievements. No matter — the days of performance appraisal are long behind me. (And what a pathetic farce that was, in any case.) So to my next picture of Christa:
Was it something I said? April 2007
Back in April 2007, during the weekend flying visit from Big Bro and niece #1, and just before we set off for Lepe country park. I wonder what I'd just said... G'night.
Another day...
... another crockpot. Come on! It's been ages since the last one (nearly two weeks) as Bro and I tended to eat out for one major meal a day. It's 08:51, not yet raining, though it seems to have done so at some point overnight. It's pleasantly cool and quite sunny. Time to get peeling and dicing.
One of my favourite gadflies1 is suggesting that too much educashun can be a bad/mad thing:
The history of Sendero was instructive, from two points of view. The first is that it destroys the notion that such revolutionary movements are the direct and spontaneous product of the grievances of the poor. The second is that it illustrates the dangerous folly of expanding tertiary education as a means of economic development rather than as a consequence of economic development.
I shall let the crockpot simmer gently over that while I wait for my appetite to recover and sup my second cuppa. Mr D takes a similarly provocative stance on health care... And Michael Jackson.
Management consultants
This is pretty eye-watering stuff too. Tee-hee:
The business world, according to Mr. Stewart, has become so obsessed with its own perverse value system and view of human nature that it is undermining the "commons" of society. Workers, for instance, are regarded as dehumanized labor, tools for businesses to use and dispose of at will. Management "science" also fails to take into account the broader context in which businesses function, choosing to focus on the interests of individual businesses at the expense of the rest of society. Mr. Stewart blames the enablers and peddlers of management science, including the consultants who seem to be everywhere.
Thinks: did anything of lasting value ever emanate from the McKinsey crowd? (Just a thought. Though they certainly think so.) The chap who wrote "The 4-hour work week" recommends a short dose of Seneca. Beats senna pods.
What's next, Mrs Landingham? How about the latest version of Firefox? Wish me luck. Well, that was painless. Let's hope the 165MB upgrade to OSX Leopard is similarly so.
More on More4
I've noticed that sometimes my Humax Freesat Hi-Def satellite PVR shows the time and sometimes not. I've just powered it up to see if this is in any way related to the need for a retune to update the range of channels but apparently not. However I noticed on flipping through the dreadful daytime channels (it's 11:48 or so) that More4 is showing Reach for the sky. I clearly recall screaming in horror — and thus having to be ejected from — my first and only cinema showing of that (in the "Rex" cinema in Wilmslow in the 1950s) during the scenes where Douglas Bader (Kenneth More2) was learning how to walk on artificial legs. I can understand Big Bro's desire to see the film for the flying sequences, but I still cannot for the life of me understand how my parents can possibly have thought it suitable for me. I did read the book not many years later, of course, but have never had the slightest desire to watch the film.
Right! Time (13:45) for a quick tum pacifier and then I'm off on a tea expotition. I bet Bro's fast asleep in NZ among his cows by now...
You know you're getting old...
... when Christa's college chum Ute sends over a list of puns and only the one about the chicken crossing the road ("poultry in motion") is new to you! It's 18:13 and has been raining for the last couple of hours. The crockpot is ready to crack open, however. Yum, yum.
Bro! I'm shocked! He's just sent me a joke question to which this:
is the answer. Though how he knows the cat is a Muslim (obviously) confounds me... I've just finished watching the Luc Besson film Angel-A and the associated extras. Nice little story. It features the gorgeous Rie Rasmussen whom I'd previously seen in De Palma's Femme Fatale.
And I've just this minute seen the sad news about director John Hughes. I liked his The breakfast club very much.