Posted on 04/07/2011 8:17:49 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
A flock of ten flamingoes have met a brutal end at a zoo in Eskilstuna in eastern Sweden after a curious anteater broke into their compound and clawed them to death, leaving a further five birds nursing injuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.se ...
Why do Mega-Corps feel it is their duty to buy ridiculously expensive and complicated programs and "centralize" things that were being handled just fine before?
And why do they ask for your input when they KNOW they are going to ignore it?
And they why do they blame the faults in their system on the employees not being sufficiently committed?
:sigh:
At least I am still employed for the moment. Several other people are not.
What? What?? Are you logged in? GZZZZZT!
How long has it been since you attended a good, old-fashioned human sacrifice? Too long, you say? Well ...
Been there. Done that.
Agonized over what input I could give (when asked) and realized my paranoia was well-founded.
They won. (They think.)
When raise time came round, I got an “A” in “Keeping Equipment clean and in good working order,” but for the next 10 items, I ranked lower than whale doo-doo.
Therefore, I was expendable, even though I was asked several times to tutor other CSRs who were less computer savvy than I was.
And I always had to work weekends, which were the heaviest times. WHY? Because I was good at what I did. They just didn’t like me. Idiots.
Hang tough, honey.
Sorry, ladies. I’m off to bed. Hang in there. When i purchase my birthday Restorative tomorrow, I’ll toast you both!!
I think I will pass on the human sacrifice, you got any pretzels?
Sleep tight Face!
Because they want you to feel involved.
You need to study the Dilbert Chronicles more. They explain everything.
Happy Birthday! You’ll get your socks soon!
Sorry, the byos ate them all.
The children seem to be trying to kill each other, accidentally. I’m glad it’s almost bedtime.
Yah. It seems the strikes, "Le Grève," are a regular thing. And it hits the German trains too.
This trip I had the experience of 200 MPH trains.
Happy birthday then, ‘Face! (At least it’s tomorrow here today.)
Actually, my birthday isn’t until tomorrow. I just don’t like to shop on Sundays, in keeping with the “Day of Rest” thingy.
:o])
It’s already tomorrow somewhere, and it’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, too, and I believe it’s still 2003 in Ethiopia.
I have to pay the electric bill. I’ll be back!
Well, I did that, and checked the plants. Shannon’s done more euphemisms in my bean patch. It’s very important to her.
I think I’ll put some bean seeds over by the wisteria trellis, since the wisteria isn’t doing much. Other people have wisterias that need their own zip code, but mine keeps acting like it wants to die.
I'll trade you. Mine wants to kill.
Maybe it’s a triffid.
Time to go to church. Pat and Sally are serving a First Communion Mass, and I have a *shudder* Hispanic Ministry committee meeting.
Turns out there wasn’t a hispanic ministry meeting, but I was going to be there anyway so it didn’t matter. I wrote up my journal and provided affection for Father’s little dog, who was very sad about being shut in the office hall.
Only you would consider the phrase "Mother Earth" to be a complete sentence.
I can’t help it. Look what I’m going through over my poor wisteria.
Father’s dog is a Boston terrier of advanced years. Frank keeps getting confused as to whether it’s a dog or a cat. Dogs look like Ash, you see.
Wait until Frank sees a pug.
With them, it’s hard to tell if they’re coming, or going.
My foster brother described one as “a loaf of bread with four legs”.
Fatheer’s dog has a visible head, but no tail.
Pat, Sally, and Elen have gone to swimming practice. The sun kind of came out, although there are more clouds building to the north. Hopefully there will be no thunder until the girls are done at 4:30.
Well, if tales of someone getting saran wrapped to shipboard structures comes back, you know that it just might be my fault.
Anoreth mentioned a story about security risks in Panama which I would SWEAR originated with P.J. O’Rourke.
Uh oh.
This I gotta hear.
It had to do with the Mossad being very active in Panama, because of the critical importance of the Canal, so that if American military personnel wandered about in Panama, they might be picked up and interrogated by the Mossad.
I would point out that we might not mind that, because we think Israelis are pretty darn cute ... but it would look bad when we got back to the boat smelling of falafel ...
LOL!
I’d worry more about the Chinese toll keepers at the canal instead.
I don’t think Anoreth’s boat went through the Canal, although I didn’t get any information from her, following the rules as she was. The CG has separate divisions for Pacific and Atlantic/Gulf.
Yeah, only reason to go through would be ‘temporary assignment for joint training with..’
Wish Tonk were still around.
He’d have loved this.
Yup. Tomorrow is about two time zones east of here, which means I need to be heading to bed soon but not as early as originally expected because Air France accomplished what Delta could not -- allowing me to check in online despite a relatively common peculiarity in my official name. I do not need to be at the airport to check in before 7:30 AM (hotel is in the airport so it won't take long to get there), and can wait until 8:30 or so.
I think I have fixed the name/chec-kin issue going forward as regards Delta, but then I booked a flight with AirTran (didn't want to, but corporate booking policies left me little room) and it turns out their website programmers are the most clueless, unaware of Western naming conventions, or just simply stupid or uncaring...
But forget all that. I had a mostly delightful day in sunny Paris (good for the camera, bad for me) today. I was planning to process photos tomorrow for posting online, but discovered I do not have, nor can I get, a seat with enough space forward to open up the laptop.
I might rejoin you tomorrow afternoon (PDT), but please understand if my body clock complains that it's past midnight and I'll be even less coherent than usual.
Again, Happy Birthday (tomorrow), 'Face!
I hope it all goes well for you. It’s raining here again. The girls’ swim practice ended early because of thunder.
I’m sure he can appreciate it somehow.
Good night (it’s almost 11 PM here). I’ll be back maybe tomorrow afternoon your time — or not.
I know.
Still, there’s a hole in the forum where he once was.
Yes, that’s true.
I’ve been poking through the bars at a prophecy enthusiast. Did you know our current drought (?) and the spawning of the 13-year cicadas indicate the end of the world? But honestly, it’s not that fun because they’re in such a fog.
Thanks!
Not so. Darks and I are conversant with all end-of-the-world scenarios, having been instrumental in developing them, and this isn't one of them.
As a budding prophecy enthusiast myself, being an erstwhile science fiction writer, I would posit that many unbelievable things still have to come to fruition, in the "dogs and cats living together" type of situation.
F'r'instance, do you imagine that all sexual deviancy that is currently viewed as unthinkable, unimaginable, and unlikely has yet been invented? Not by a long shot.
For guidance, consider that most taboos have a modicum of science behind them; practical reasons for the stern suggestions of what denotes proper behavior. Once that science has developed, and the basis for the taboo understood, the reason for its continued existence becomes moot.
So, any taboos you're not particularly fond of? They could be heading for the ash-heap.
Larry Niven is the prophet here, having suggested Rishathra as a means of currency. Obviously far-seeing. In a modern society, with the ability to replicate almost anything for almost nothing, novelty is the only item worth something.
And besides that, we're still waiting for our flying cars, anti-gravity, and electrical energy too cheap to meter.
There are Easter Eggs out there, like super-conductivity, lasers, blue LEDs, electronic kissing (to keep it polite), and others I'm not allowed to mention because of the Time Police scrutiny.
We haven't found all of them yet.
It’s going to be a fascinating future, I see. Someday, your books will be like historical novels instead of science fiction.
It’s interesting how the past looks different from the future. For example, in novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, fatal disease is a pervasive element. Everyone is terrified of cholera, tuberculosis, and typhoid. In modern historical novels about the period, it’s rare to find a whole slew of protagonists wiped out by disease. Well, except for “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
I just love your descriptions of places and people Sion!
Happy travels, get home safe!
I’ve heard that one of their biggest worries was where they would put all the horse manure, in the future.
I guess that shows how futile our worries are.
Actually, what shows how futile our worries are, is remembering back to a year ago, in one of everyone's gripe sessions, concerning whatever it was they were griping about.
Then trying to remember what happened to those gripes.
You see, what happens is that someone found a way to deal with the problem, or someone who was a problem went somewhere else, or maybe we just learned to accommodate, as other things surfaced to become the problem du jour.
And that's after only a year.
Imagine if you take steps by generations, or lifetimes!
One of my favorite games is to consider what my great-grandfather might say about us, as we go through our daily lives, and give voice to our problems.
He'd probably be convinced that the world is full of crybaby pantywaists, who've got the world at their feet, and they don't even appreciate it.
I mentioned replicators. Have you heard of copying machines? Xerox Company?
I'll bet you've got a copier not very far from where you are right now. Most computer printers have that as an ancillary function.
Remember what Thomas Jefferson had to do to have a copy of his correspondence that he was sending out?
It's hard to realize that there was a time when it used to be someone's job to help you make telephone connections through the labyrinthine mazes criss-crossing even the smallest towns.
Or in a time before that, you had to send a runner with a message to or from the telegraph office, or on horseback.
But obviously the direction of our progress is clear. In the future, no one need ever be out of touch with the entire world, and all of its knowledge. That's a powerful change.
And what will we do with it? Why, we'll keep our friends informed of every occasion that we choose to clip our toenails, or when we find lint in our pockets.
Didn’t Jefferson invent the duplo-pen on a strut to simultaneously write what he was writing? I can’t think it would work all that well. He could have employed a stenographer, except he was always in debt up to his topknot.
It was invented by an Englishman, John Hawkins. But Jefferson used it and adapted it to suit his needs.
It’s interesting how the past looks different from the future. For example, in novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, fatal disease is a pervasive element. Everyone is terrified of cholera, tuberculosis, and typhoid. In modern historical novels about the period, it’s rare to find a whole slew of protagonists wiped out by disease. Well, except for “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Not to be a pessimist, but I'd say "present" and not "future." I remember the big hoopla over the Salk Sabin polio virus (and 50 years later last summer visited the school where I received the sugar cube). But... the warnings over the waning efficacy of our antibiotics are worrisome.
Thanks, fanfan! Maybe after I'm back I can write about my experience of eating in a Mexican restaurant in Germany -- the food was NOT like an American/Canadian Mexican restaurant. (And that's what I wanted to know: eating in "American" restaurants in Finland was an eye-opener.)
Which brings its own problems -- how to sort through it. I had booked the hotel I'm in right now weeks ago, but it was only yesterday morning (in the previous hotel) that I found the information about exactly where it is in this airport, and it's not the "short" walk to my terminal previous information suggested. I have to take a shuttle.
"See" y'all after I arrive in North America...
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