Life is NOT a journey to the grave with the goal of arriving safely in a prettily preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways in a shower of gravel and party shards, thoroughly used, utterly exhausted, and loudly proclaiming: "Fuck ME, that was BRILLIANT!"— Saltation (2004)
(revved-up from an earlier quote,
apparently from Hunter S. Thompson)
Sunday, February 29, 2004
R&B Insight
- Mate's mate mid-channel-surf, struggling to express his vague mild outrage/failure to understand the appeal of R&B videos (playing then on the box):
- "All these videos are all exactly the same...these songs are all, they're just about... making loads of money, buying fast cars...getting famous...shagging beautiful women..."
- Sal:
- "You're just jealous."
Saturday, February 28, 2004
Grr
This is really more a Saltation topic. But before I put an Apple-(psycho)analysis screed up there, I'd prefer first to clean it up and cohere it up a bit, make it a bit constructive rather than just a rant.
And this sub-blog IS supposed to be about whatever the hell I'm on about at the moment -- the transient rather than the context-free.
So, here goes my response to a recent newbie-optimistic-innocent query on a mailing list:
---
And this sub-blog IS supposed to be about whatever the hell I'm on about at the moment -- the transient rather than the context-free.
So, here goes my response to a recent newbie-optimistic-innocent query on a mailing list:
---
> What do you all use your macs for?
> I still think of Macs as largely used by creatives,
> but I'm sure that's no longer true.
for it not to still be true, something would have to be happening to make it NOT true. to change herd behaviour requires :
- hard focussed strategy decided in light of deep knowledge of both the market(s) and your own product
- hard focussed execution of product
- hard focussed marketing and sales rollouts
- all 3 tightly orchestrated as an exercise in logistics.
->failing in any one savagely degrades the expected outcome
->failing in two or more usually means the whole exercise is wasted effort.
i've seen NONE of this from apple in a bid to open its markets back out again.
in fact even where they've dabbled in server capabilities (<irony>a slightly obvious extension of moving to a *nix backend...</irony>) their stated corporate server strategy is to target only existing mac users. i'm not making this up.
so despite some twitchings in submarkets where frustrated mac-aware system builders or admins have put together one-offs, the fact that apple's just-announced marketshare is firmly below 2% and continuing to fall kinda indicates they're not doing a lot coherently. and they are EXPLICITLY refusing to address the key core market that drives perhaps 50-75% of global computer revenue directly and indirectly: corporate desktop
'scuse me mr apple.
it's not enough just to jump into the unix pool.
you have to swim too.
Red Menace II
wRussia wreaks its inevitable wrevenge: you've got crabs, I'm afraid. Huge ones.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Anatomy of every human idea
- Someone thinks of an original idea.
- Everyone else rings tiny changes on it and claims membership of the original idea's inner circle.
- When you've run out of creative ideas, add blood and violence.
Note, this time there was no sex. That penguin should thank its lucky stars they got to the landmines before the lube.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
We live 1,000 minutes a day
while mustering the energy to go chase down my wandering mind, something occurred to me regarding my orgasm post.
300 a day, at 1 every 3 minutes, implies there's roughly 1,000 minutes a waking day? is that right? let's see, 8 hours times 60 minutes is 480 minutes so twice that is 960. close enough.
cool. we experience life for 1,000 minutes a day.
300 a day, at 1 every 3 minutes, implies there's roughly 1,000 minutes a waking day? is that right? let's see, 8 hours times 60 minutes is 480 minutes so twice that is 960. close enough.
cool. we experience life for 1,000 minutes a day.
"The journey of 1,000 minutes begins with a bewildered coffee."
-- Old Jungle Saying,
from The Collected Writings of Salfucius
300 orgasms a day?
According to this inaptly named "New!" magazine someone's left on the kitchen table, which appears to be another "OK!" but without the literary content, not only does a celebrity have a new partner but there's a woman in Lancashire who has 300 orgasms a day.
I'm speechless.
Presumably, so is she and quite often.
FINALLY, a woman's magazine has put forward someone I'm willing to adopt as a role model!
That's, what, 12 or 13 an hour? Every 5 minutes. Actually, that's not right- that's assuming she comes (& counts) while she's asleep. So if she sleeps 8 hours a day that'd go up by 1/3 to about 1 every 3 minutes.
And I don't know about you, but if I was coming every 3 minutes I was awake, I'd be willing to lose a bit of sleep. That early start would start to look a bit better. Screw the 8 hours a night and bright-eyed bushy-tailed clear-complected bounce, I'd be rolling into bed in the wee small hours and up again at the crack of -- well, every crack I could lay my grubby paws on.
I'm speechless.
Presumably, so is she and quite often.
FINALLY, a woman's magazine has put forward someone I'm willing to adopt as a role model!
That's, what, 12 or 13 an hour? Every 5 minutes. Actually, that's not right- that's assuming she comes (& counts) while she's asleep. So if she sleeps 8 hours a day that'd go up by 1/3 to about 1 every 3 minutes.
And I don't know about you, but if I was coming every 3 minutes I was awake, I'd be willing to lose a bit of sleep. That early start would start to look a bit better. Screw the 8 hours a night and bright-eyed bushy-tailed clear-complected bounce, I'd be rolling into bed in the wee small hours and up again at the crack of -- well, every crack I could lay my grubby paws on.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Blind Date
"So, tell me about yourself! All I know is that you're thirty-six and five foot ten."
"Err. Well, that's it, I'm afraid. I'm very shallow."
"Err. Well, that's it, I'm afraid. I'm very shallow."
Friday, February 20, 2004
Hot Iced Cocoa
Oh yum! On the steps outside Liverpool Street Station, the morning's joyless grey-black commuter-scurry parts suddenly to a delightful surprise.
White icing wrapped round cocoa sex.
Softly rounded fit and firm light-skinned caribbean butterball hustling through a brief open space. But with joyfully cartoon platinum white close-cropped hair, and matching eye-poking glossy white plastic coat over tight pink and white trousers and, whoa, decolletage.
Like one of those white sugar easter eggs, pink-frosted, but a novelty creamy chocolate core.
God I love chocolate. Melts in the mouth AND in the hand.
The sheer sudden glorious unexpected contrast of her with her, and then, even more outstandingly, of her with the dullness around her, is a diamond spotlight picking her out of the crowd, spattering off her hair her coat and burning her image onto our grateful smile-startled retinas. That high-held soft blousy body toned by salsa and cocoa-butter, miles from my ballet dancer ideal but deliciously sexy, shapely rounded face between white hair and white coat, with round active eyes twinkling in flawless skin and those huge chewy brown-on-brown lips you immediatelytaste want to taste. And you just KNOW when she smiles, her teeth will burst broad across her face, wide and bright and framed in cupid brown stretched and glistening, beckoning with laughter, imprinting her face behind your eyes in diamond light for one long dazzled dumb hungry moment.
And then with a fast plastic rustle she's past, her platinum cocoa novelty lost again to the crowd huddling into the top of the escalators.
What a great way to start the day. Tank girl before breakfast. Thank you, whoever you were.
White icing wrapped round cocoa sex.
Softly rounded fit and firm light-skinned caribbean butterball hustling through a brief open space. But with joyfully cartoon platinum white close-cropped hair, and matching eye-poking glossy white plastic coat over tight pink and white trousers and, whoa, decolletage.
Like one of those white sugar easter eggs, pink-frosted, but a novelty creamy chocolate core.
God I love chocolate. Melts in the mouth AND in the hand.
The sheer sudden glorious unexpected contrast of her with her, and then, even more outstandingly, of her with the dullness around her, is a diamond spotlight picking her out of the crowd, spattering off her hair her coat and burning her image onto our grateful smile-startled retinas. That high-held soft blousy body toned by salsa and cocoa-butter, miles from my ballet dancer ideal but deliciously sexy, shapely rounded face between white hair and white coat, with round active eyes twinkling in flawless skin and those huge chewy brown-on-brown lips you immediately
And then with a fast plastic rustle she's past, her platinum cocoa novelty lost again to the crowd huddling into the top of the escalators.
What a great way to start the day. Tank girl before breakfast. Thank you, whoever you were.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Where DO the mornings go?
Some ratbag next door decided to do minor house maintenance last night, and this little weedy nervous tap-tap-tap of a hammer on the other side of my bedroom wall sidled in past my anti-karaoke earplugs till 3 in the morning.
OK, he might not be a ratbag. He might even be that chap with the guitar and penchant for singing well through the open window next to ours in the alleyway. I can't tell. I don't care. At 3am with a hammer on the other side of my bedroom wall he's a ratbag. Simple as that.
So my early start, planned to begin with a vigorous "Hup Hoy!" and a bound from the bed, was a way late blurry bumbling around on the starting blocks. Chewing on a nice big bowl of toasted coffee did little for my energy level but HAS given me breath that could drop an alsation at 20 paces.
I'm assuming here you're talking normal people's paces, not some super-giant chap who strolls 100m in a handful of strides and a relaxed frame of mind. Then, oooo I'd be guessing but maybe you'd have to bring that dog up to within a couple of those super-giant strides before I could confidently blast the poor pup's consciousness with my Lethe-al weapon.
So here it is, 1:15ish in the oh-so-lovely London afternoon, and the only thing greyer than my outlook today is that out my window. God, why I am I living in this joyless clime?
Oh, that's right, the money.
Speaking of which, I should look for a job. Bang out a couple of job grovels then go to the gym -- that's a PLAN.
hmmm... [peruses ad.] Here goes one now:
Dear clueless HR person vetting CVs for a position you don't understand in a company whose business worthiness you honestly believe your posturing jobs-worthy obstructiveness and box-ticking contributes to,
I would like to apply for the position you advertised.
I have vast capabilities in this area, having done similar stuff in a variety of contexts with success levels that would make your eyes bleed if only you understood what it is your company actually DOES. I am aware that I have done other stuff as well, however I believe this could actually make me MORE qualified rather than less.
I attach my CV and look forward to your polite rejection.
hugs and kisses,
Sal
There, that should do it. Now, if I can just work out how the hell I get the stamp on this email, I'll shoot it off and wait for the early retirement offers to flood in. Failing that, maybe I can sell some of my enlarged penises on the internet.
OK, he might not be a ratbag. He might even be that chap with the guitar and penchant for singing well through the open window next to ours in the alleyway. I can't tell. I don't care. At 3am with a hammer on the other side of my bedroom wall he's a ratbag. Simple as that.
So my early start, planned to begin with a vigorous "Hup Hoy!" and a bound from the bed, was a way late blurry bumbling around on the starting blocks. Chewing on a nice big bowl of toasted coffee did little for my energy level but HAS given me breath that could drop an alsation at 20 paces.
I'm assuming here you're talking normal people's paces, not some super-giant chap who strolls 100m in a handful of strides and a relaxed frame of mind. Then, oooo I'd be guessing but maybe you'd have to bring that dog up to within a couple of those super-giant strides before I could confidently blast the poor pup's consciousness with my Lethe-al weapon.
So here it is, 1:15ish in the oh-so-lovely London afternoon, and the only thing greyer than my outlook today is that out my window. God, why I am I living in this joyless clime?
Oh, that's right, the money.
Speaking of which, I should look for a job. Bang out a couple of job grovels then go to the gym -- that's a PLAN.
hmmm... [peruses ad.] Here goes one now:
Dear clueless HR person vetting CVs for a position you don't understand in a company whose business worthiness you honestly believe your posturing jobs-worthy obstructiveness and box-ticking contributes to,
I would like to apply for the position you advertised.
I have vast capabilities in this area, having done similar stuff in a variety of contexts with success levels that would make your eyes bleed if only you understood what it is your company actually DOES. I am aware that I have done other stuff as well, however I believe this could actually make me MORE qualified rather than less.
I attach my CV and look forward to your polite rejection.
hugs and kisses,
Sal
There, that should do it. Now, if I can just work out how the hell I get the stamp on this email, I'll shoot it off and wait for the early retirement offers to flood in. Failing that, maybe I can sell some of my enlarged penises on the internet.
Monday, February 16, 2004
A thought to guide you in your journey through Life
REAL friends help you hide the bodies.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Say "Hi!" to the Velvet Brain Hammer
You may be looking at this white-faced palsied wretch draped over the keyboard moaning softly, and thinking to yourself "I want to be like him!"
Well, now you can.
Here, for the irrationally experimental among you, is the recipe for my, and now your, destruction:
Saltation's Velvet Brain Hammer
Basis:
Absolut Kurrant, Cointreau, lemon zest, flamed lime zest, ice & cranberry juice to taste.
Method:
Take 2 pint glasses for mixing purposes. I always mix better with 2 pints. Into one pour 2 shots of Absolut Kurrant and 2 shots of Cointreau. With a zesting tool, scrape in half a lemon peel. Cut large-ish slices of lime peel off then bend them backwards over an open flame -- you should get jets of burning oil spitting out and into the drink. I usually use about half a lime, and I like to then further scorch the peel before dropping it into the glass. Put in a fair amount of ice, then top up the glass with cranberry juice. Pour the lot back and forth between the two pint glasses till it's mixed, then pour into a tall glass.
Delicious.
Sweet yet crisp, the merest suggestion of alcohol, refreshes the palate even as it numbs. Polish it off. Repeat. Repeat. Notice how much wittier you're getting. Repeat. Peel floorboard from face. Repeat. Notice that the sun has suddenly come up and the world is very very LOUD. Observe half full glass next to head. Shrug, pick it up, and...
Repeat
Well, now you can.
Here, for the irrationally experimental among you, is the recipe for my, and now your, destruction:
Saltation's Velvet Brain Hammer
Basis:
Absolut Kurrant, Cointreau, lemon zest, flamed lime zest, ice & cranberry juice to taste.
Method:
Take 2 pint glasses for mixing purposes. I always mix better with 2 pints. Into one pour 2 shots of Absolut Kurrant and 2 shots of Cointreau. With a zesting tool, scrape in half a lemon peel. Cut large-ish slices of lime peel off then bend them backwards over an open flame -- you should get jets of burning oil spitting out and into the drink. I usually use about half a lime, and I like to then further scorch the peel before dropping it into the glass. Put in a fair amount of ice, then top up the glass with cranberry juice. Pour the lot back and forth between the two pint glasses till it's mixed, then pour into a tall glass.
Delicious.
Sweet yet crisp, the merest suggestion of alcohol, refreshes the palate even as it numbs. Polish it off. Repeat. Repeat. Notice how much wittier you're getting. Repeat. Peel floorboard from face. Repeat. Notice that the sun has suddenly come up and the world is very very LOUD. Observe half full glass next to head. Shrug, pick it up, and...
Repeat
Unwise...
God.
I always forget how lethal that bloody cocktail is.
I'm dizzy. I just tried watching TV but Pokemon got too intellectual for me and I fell off the couch.
I always forget how lethal that bloody cocktail is.
I'm dizzy. I just tried watching TV but Pokemon got too intellectual for me and I fell off the couch.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Happy Valentines Pay
"Would all Tesco's customers please note: All flowers are now HALF PRICE."
I look up and grin, the girl at the checkout grins back.
I'm having a dull one this year. I'm having a cup of tea now, barely containing my excitement. I'm waiting on an Italian beauty(!) to let me know if I'm on the list for some party in some new venue in Kings Cross (Egg? Never heard of it. No doubt they're crushed by this), but I'm really not in a party mood. Maybe I'll just stay in and surf or watch TV or read or write up raving blog entries with the aid of a batch of my favourite cocktail. I ran across it when Bardo's was my local and liked it so much I adopted it: Saltation's Velvet Brain Hammer, the ultimate in genteel lethality.
Last year's Valentines Day was rather better. Balancing an Estonian schoolgirl on one hand in the jacuzzi as I leaned back to observe in the ceiling's mirror what a delightful picture she made stretched across the foam. The hotel had a private sauna for rent with private bar, showers, steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, leather lounges, videos, candles, ice bucket, the works. Delightfully unsleazily decadent. So naturally, we took every advantage we could of it. And each other.
I'd taken a long weekend and flown to Tallinn, she'd bussed up from Tartu. We rented an apartment for a couple of days: long lazy morning sex then wandering round the Old Town eating and drinking ourselves silly, then frenzied late night sessions in various stages of drunkenness. She'd brought her toys, but they really do get in the way of the flesh most of the time, so they didn't get a lot of use. Everything else did. After one particularly good morning session we were meandering wobble-kneed along the cobbles and she suddenly stopped and cried "What have you DONE to me? My pussy's PULSING!" At which point we got a good idea of just how many Estonians speak excellent english and have excellent hearing- many startled swivellings in our direction...
She texted me today as I came home from the gym. "Mmm...feathers.....mmm,horny aussie... have a nice Valentin's day ;) Long cuddle and some sweet kisses!"
Ah, minu lemmik armuke.
I look up and grin, the girl at the checkout grins back.
I'm having a dull one this year. I'm having a cup of tea now, barely containing my excitement. I'm waiting on an Italian beauty(!) to let me know if I'm on the list for some party in some new venue in Kings Cross (Egg? Never heard of it. No doubt they're crushed by this), but I'm really not in a party mood. Maybe I'll just stay in and surf or watch TV or read or write up raving blog entries with the aid of a batch of my favourite cocktail. I ran across it when Bardo's was my local and liked it so much I adopted it: Saltation's Velvet Brain Hammer, the ultimate in genteel lethality.
Last year's Valentines Day was rather better. Balancing an Estonian schoolgirl on one hand in the jacuzzi as I leaned back to observe in the ceiling's mirror what a delightful picture she made stretched across the foam. The hotel had a private sauna for rent with private bar, showers, steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, leather lounges, videos, candles, ice bucket, the works. Delightfully unsleazily decadent. So naturally, we took every advantage we could of it. And each other.
I'd taken a long weekend and flown to Tallinn, she'd bussed up from Tartu. We rented an apartment for a couple of days: long lazy morning sex then wandering round the Old Town eating and drinking ourselves silly, then frenzied late night sessions in various stages of drunkenness. She'd brought her toys, but they really do get in the way of the flesh most of the time, so they didn't get a lot of use. Everything else did. After one particularly good morning session we were meandering wobble-kneed along the cobbles and she suddenly stopped and cried "What have you DONE to me? My pussy's PULSING!" At which point we got a good idea of just how many Estonians speak excellent english and have excellent hearing- many startled swivellings in our direction...
She texted me today as I came home from the gym. "Mmm...feathers.....mmm,horny aussie... have a nice Valentin's day ;) Long cuddle and some sweet kisses!"
Ah, minu lemmik armuke.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Oh dear Lord
My eyes are trying to decide whether they should burst into flames or simply roll out of their sockets and down the front of my face.
It SEEMED like a good idea at the time.
"Do you want another pint?"
So, an attempt at an apology (which it turned out might not have been necessary? oh well, at least she knows now what I'd thought she meant) over an early lunch turned into a long lunch turned into an afternoon turned into a midday-till-closingtime pint & pool fest.
My long list of people to call and things round town to do, now looks even limper than I do. I cancelled the interview. My hands are shaking too hard to shake anyone else's. If I'm going to impress a major player in an instrument I can barely spell, today is not the day.
Up! Up! Make a start and all else will follow! Carpe diem!
I couldn't bloody tuna diem today.
It SEEMED like a good idea at the time.
"Do you want another pint?"
So, an attempt at an apology (which it turned out might not have been necessary? oh well, at least she knows now what I'd thought she meant) over an early lunch turned into a long lunch turned into an afternoon turned into a midday-till-closingtime pint & pool fest.
My long list of people to call and things round town to do, now looks even limper than I do. I cancelled the interview. My hands are shaking too hard to shake anyone else's. If I'm going to impress a major player in an instrument I can barely spell, today is not the day.
Up! Up! Make a start and all else will follow! Carpe diem!
I couldn't bloody tuna diem today.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
A cunning plan
I've decided to save money on blue cheese. I am cunningly purchasing ordinary cheese and keeping it past the use-by date. Already I can smell my plan coming to fruition every time I open the fridge.
While the cat's away
I'm observing today a lovely example of the English work ethic.
Or perhaps I should say European, given that I find the English actually more productive than most nationalities here. Austrians are really the only exception, which makes the German attitude to them all the more amusing. The Scandwegians I would have expected also, but my work experiences with them have so far been inconclusive.
There's a small accountants' office strung over 3 storeys opposite my windows, our house also being strung over the same 3 storeys but shifted up 1, facing them across a little Victorian alleyway about 10 feet wide. They have a meeting room on the ground floor with a lovely view of the steady stream of people clattering through to Spitalfields Market and of the wine bar beneath us, on the next floor up sits a secretary or office manager or something with a view of our lounge room if she looks left, and on the second floor sit the senior types, with a view of my bedroom curtains if they stand up. One of my windows' curtains I keep semi-drawn, providing light but blocking our mutual views of each other unless I am at my desk and lean forwards into the corner.
Scene set?
Good.
I'll proceed with my point.
Today while vacillating at the keyboard, I noted the window opposite was dark. The lights had not been switched on, the partners were not in. Quite unusual.
I toddled downstairs to refill on water from the fridge in the lounge room. The secretary was in, on the phone, turned fully away from her keyboard and desk, leaning back and laughing and looking out the window with her left hand up behind her head playing with her hair. Nice to see her relaxed for once. She normally sits fairly static and studious, plowing through the piles of typing on her desk, a fair whack of which awaited her today.
I returned to my vacillation upstairs.
Finally admitting to myself that I was in no frame of mind to go visit the beautiful barmaid and that I was achieving little constructive, I popped out to get the FT to see if any good jobs were in today's.
Over an hour later, the secretary is in precisely the same position, laughing precisely the same laugh, playing with precisely the same hair. The boss isn't going to see you -- do whatever you want! The partners' notes and papers gather dust next to her screen.
English people are like bricks. They don't move unless you push them.
Or perhaps I should say European, given that I find the English actually more productive than most nationalities here. Austrians are really the only exception, which makes the German attitude to them all the more amusing. The Scandwegians I would have expected also, but my work experiences with them have so far been inconclusive.
There's a small accountants' office strung over 3 storeys opposite my windows, our house also being strung over the same 3 storeys but shifted up 1, facing them across a little Victorian alleyway about 10 feet wide. They have a meeting room on the ground floor with a lovely view of the steady stream of people clattering through to Spitalfields Market and of the wine bar beneath us, on the next floor up sits a secretary or office manager or something with a view of our lounge room if she looks left, and on the second floor sit the senior types, with a view of my bedroom curtains if they stand up. One of my windows' curtains I keep semi-drawn, providing light but blocking our mutual views of each other unless I am at my desk and lean forwards into the corner.
Scene set?
Good.
I'll proceed with my point.
Today while vacillating at the keyboard, I noted the window opposite was dark. The lights had not been switched on, the partners were not in. Quite unusual.
I toddled downstairs to refill on water from the fridge in the lounge room. The secretary was in, on the phone, turned fully away from her keyboard and desk, leaning back and laughing and looking out the window with her left hand up behind her head playing with her hair. Nice to see her relaxed for once. She normally sits fairly static and studious, plowing through the piles of typing on her desk, a fair whack of which awaited her today.
I returned to my vacillation upstairs.
Finally admitting to myself that I was in no frame of mind to go visit the beautiful barmaid and that I was achieving little constructive, I popped out to get the FT to see if any good jobs were in today's.
Over an hour later, the secretary is in precisely the same position, laughing precisely the same laugh, playing with precisely the same hair. The boss isn't going to see you -- do whatever you want! The partners' notes and papers gather dust next to her screen.
English people are like bricks. They don't move unless you push them.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Bugs and wogs and virii, oh my!
Bleah. Yesterday's braindeath revealed itself today as a virus. High temperature, weak yet tight muscles, and that delightful inability to think in a straight line. Having yawned through a movie (thank you, TiVo), I was blearing my way upstairs and mentioned my wog-whacked wobbleheadedness to my flatmate walking in from work. Lo! Turns out he has swollen glands and imminent fever and singular lack of brainicularity himself. TreeeeMENdous. That plus those I was out with Friday and Saturday are all feeling pants as well.
Think I'll give up talking to people, they're not good for my health.
Think I'll give up talking to people, they're not good for my health.
Monday, February 02, 2004
"Your changes have been saved"
Hallelujah!
How nice for them. They WILL be pleased.
How nice for them. They WILL be pleased.
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