An Exercise in Avoiding Boredom

As the photo below demonstrates, the skills needed for succeeding in the military are non-trivial. Looking at the photo (not sure which army or military organization this is), suggests that you should neither like to eat beans, onions, or garlic, and also that you should not be ticklish or heat sensitive in your private parts. [...]

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The 2007 SAP Research Report is out… Subtitled: thinking out of the box… Wished they had asked a native speaker. At least my thinking doesn’t come out of a box. It sure is unique! I hope the readers of this blog can attest to it.
If you use Google as an oracle, it shows to be [...]

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Sometimes, the email spam I get is quite funny. For example, one “Adam Logan” writes me:
Check out the latest research in anti-education! Go to syllable-dessert.com!

One can only wonder whether a syllable dessert can really be anti-educational. Wouldn’t such a dish improve language skills in any case? I have a hunch that I may be interpreting [...]

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The conference I attended in Leipzig, Germany, overlapped with the world-wide gathering of Goth people. Some were quite beautiful, actually, and certainly elaborate, as the photo below shows (courtesy of Wilhelm Schäfer).

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Amazingly enough, sarcasm helped. Or, I just got lucky, as there were no further complications.

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Fan-subs used to say in the opening of an episode:
“Not for sale, rent, or auction.”
These days, it has become:
“Not for sale, rent, auction, or online streaming.”
I guess that’s to prevent services like YouTube and crappy roll from benefiting from fan-subs and hurting the community.

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In the U.S. mementos that life is transient are quite common, see below. Or, more prosaically, this is what you get when you try to leave the house in a hurry.

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From a leaflet on tips and tricks for staying in Beijing:
“Please prepare extra clothes if you want to hang out in the evening, though we will never suggest you to do that.”
“Make sure you don’t have your cameras, bags, packets, and other unreasonable things with you. Ladies will be allowed to bring their hand bags [...]

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I just returned from a presentation and recruiting trip to Suzhou only to find my hotel room unmade. This was my fault as I had forgotten to switch of the Do-Not-Disturb sign. (*)
The fruits I had received as a welcome gift two days ago were still on their plate, half-eaten. So I called up the [...]

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