Three things make a post, so here's three random thoughts.

Random Thought #1

I recently had cause to watch the WWII movie The Guns of Navarone. In it, there are several scenes in German, but no subtitles are provided. I also noted that the theatrical release of The Battle of Britain had a lot of such un-subtitled scenes. When did the convention ( Read more... )

There's been a lot of discussion about being productive in a pandemic. I personally have been very productive at the day job and I've been getting a lot of writing done. That's due to a couple of factors:

1) I've been lucky. My day job involves me having phone meetings with people from London to LA (literally). Working from home has been a non-event ( Read more... )

The other day I stated that my place of employment was offering discounts on pop if you used a debit or credit card. They are offering discounts, but the reason isn't because it's cheaper to use a card. The reason is they want people to test their new contactless debit card and this is the incentive.

Every once in a while I make a mistake.

This ( Read more... )

My place of work, like many places, has a pair of vending machines in the break room. They recently put credit / debit card readers on the machines in addition to the bill and coin feeds. I just today realized that if you use a credit card to buy something, it's cheaper. Like 85 cents for a pop with cash, 50 cents with card. I assume it's ( Read more... )

Various news, provided for your amusement:

Books

Over the weekend, I reduced the price of the ebook edition of The Mars Run to 99 cents. That will be it's new permanent price. I also set it up so that if you buy the paper version you can get the ebook for free. We'll see if this spurs any sales.

Weekend UpdateI did very little this weekend. ( Read more... )

I am a big fan of the Toto song "Africa" and have been since it came out in 1982. (It's recently been covered by Weezer.) Well, for all those years, I thought the lyrics were "I miss the rains down in Africa."

The line is actually "I bless the rains down in Africa." To which I say, "really? Who are you to bless anything?"

This entry was ( Read more... )

Chicago got hit with a big snowstorm today. I woke up to 5 inches on the ground and another 3 expected to fall. The bank stayed open, so I had to come in, but when I found the roads to be as slick as greased snot I went to Darien, our hot-site and a bank very near me, instead of Oak Brook. We picked up a couple of guest workers here but very few ( Read more... )

As you may have heard here, I recently visited The Old Soil, AKA Lithuania. It's a cute country in Eastern Europe with a bad history of getting absorbed by Russia. It's also a small country, with around 2.8 million people, roughly the same population as Kansas ( Read more... )

"Learn Your Craft," or how to show one's ass in public.I was at a neighborhood restaurant over the weekend, and the lady near me ordered Oysters Rockefeller. They were served with Tabasco sauce, as per the menu. The lady found this highly unacceptable, a manager was called, and when Hollandaise sauce or an (in the mind of the customer) substitute ( Read more... )

Like the label says, links!

A) The Advantage of Being a Little Underemployed. From the link: Before 1900 the average American worker worked more than 60 hours a week. A standard schedule was ten-hour days, six days a week. The only structural limits to working were lighting and religion. You stopped working when it was too dark to see or to go to ( Read more... )