Working on some stuff for BMEshop and the new printing company this morning, and then shortly we're off. I'm doing an experience update this evening, so if you have time, reviewing experiences makes that job go much better…
I'm happy to see that the US has had to release its hostages (more) — they were capturing and holding prisoner the wives and children of people they suspected of being opposed to America in order to attempt to convince them to turn themselves in (ie. turn yourself in or we abuse your wife type stuff). They'd been asked to release them “because such actions are provocative for the Iraqi people” — I suppose no one thought to mention that it's also a war crime (sounds familiar).
PS. 4,000 Americans have been maimed to the point where they had to be evacuated out of Iraq for medical reasons so far (more). Outside of the roughly one dead soldier a day, that's about 25 guys a day being evacuated due to their injuries. 20% of those suffered “severe brain injuries” (ie. they're now severely mentally handicapped), with 50% more believed to also have some form of brain injury.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Now, I know that beans are the musical fruit and all — “the more you eat, the more you toot” — but to me it seems strange to actually market beans on that basis. Mr. Goudas calls their mixed beans the “9th Symphony” and it includes a singing bean saying, “Eat & Music will follow”… I wonder if the average person notices or not?
Thursday, October 23, 2003
I don't mind when I have to turn images down for things like people forgetting to press the macro button. It doesn't bother me; it's part of the process and I know that not everyone even knows that their camera has a macro button… but what does bother me — and happens very regularly is when people complain about their images being turned down because of some variation on the “I'm never wrong” argument.
For example, I just received the following, and told the person they had to press the macro button to take a crisp close-up (if you're not sure, it's a septum, and a lip/tongue piercing):
They replied with,
i have a 4000 dollar camera. im a photographer.. and ure telling me how to use macro..
I mean, what can I even say? “Yeah, I know, it's very sad?” It's like people think I reject images just for fun to mess with people or something… Hmm, I ought to be careful or I'll be moving into whiny bee-otch territory myself! I mean, am I crazy here? I'm pretty sure those pictures are blurry. Maybe I need to get my eyes checked.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
I installed all the latest MS patches to the server lately… They've been pumping out a lot of them lately, making the questionable claim that MS products are becoming more secure than their UNIX competitors. Other than that I'll probably wash the cars today (very dirty!) and do the image update.
You may be interested/amused to hear that Baghdad Burger King, located in the airport, cooks over 5,000 burgers a day and has climbed into the top 10 of all BK franchises in the world (more). Two interesting bits of trivia about it:
- In order to save costs, BK Iraq imports cheap workers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Nepal. They sleep in bunk beds in a housing unit right behind the joint.
- All prices are US cash-only, but you don't get change back — you get coupons that can be exchanged for stuff like t-shirts reading “Who's Your Baghdaddy?” (you know you want that shirt).
Other than that I see that four billion dollars — eighty percent of the money spent by CPA in Iraq so far (more) — can't be accounted for. That seems to me to be an unacceptable rate of loss… If it was me calling the shots I'd be very uncomfortable with anything over 5% I think.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Now, I'll readily admit that I mess up spelling and grammar very very regularly. That's not a big deal. And I do appreciate it when people let me know when those typos creep in, assuming they're not snide about it. But if you're going to be a “spelling nazi”, it would be best to look words you don't know up in the dictionary before assuming that the entire language is limited to your vocabulary!
Here is the REAL question. Did you make up the word "expiry." Dont bother responding if you dont have time, lol. Ill understand.
I'm not going to out the person — I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they really had no idea what the word meant — but I can probably sum up what I think of messages like that with a couple real words (one that you might need urbandictionary to confirm)… let's try “whiny bee-otch”.
whiny: To complain or protest in a childish fashion.
bee-otch: some bumblebee mothafucka!!!
i'm a sting yo ass bee-otch!
Now, to make this entry a little more fun, this should bring a smile to your face:
Photos by Rachel, Highland cattle by Richard.
