Thursday, February 05, 2004

 
Well that was worth it.

Apropos (wow I get to follow that with something other than "of nothing") of yesterday's post, the email has finally appeared. But only after I had to contact the group again as strangely nothing had appeared by last night. It's a bit odd trying to think of ways of putting, as politely as possible, that I was rung by a South African woman with a really harsh accent, and so I couldn't decipher her name[1], who said she'd email something to me, and er...it hasn't appeared, the email account is working fine, I've even checked the junk mail section, and she had my address written down right in a text file.

Which limits the number of ways it could have gone wrong. Either she retyped what's already been typed, and so someone else has got an odd email, or something went wrong in the sending, or she didn't do it. If it's the first one, then it's a bit worrying that she thinks it's more efficient to reproduce information by re-entering it, and that she is inaccurate when doing it. If it's the second, the you get a message back saying "mail undeliverable" or some suitably mangled bit of language meaning the same. The third, Gee thanks for being so great at doing your job.

[1] Ok so I cheated, and figuring it wasn't a big group (and so someone would know what I was talking about), said I was rung, and left it at that. There's no point in both insulting the person who you need to help you, and appearing an idiot in front of them.

So the email finally appears about 24 hours after it was meant to. Turns out this very important form consists of 4 boxes. The first one asks if I have any special requirements. The other 3 are Name, Date, and Signature (which given they want it emailed...). In the requirements box I put one line, that appeared on one of the first two forms. These people have made a lot of fuss over getting a copy of a completed form, upon which is no information which is new to them.

Though at least all this attention means someone has actually read part of the form, and I'm not an automatic rejection.

In other news:
- My car still floods. That's as in literally, not as in trying to start it with the choke out. Mild, wet and stormy weather may be nice and warm, making a change from miserable cold weather (I think I like 10oC above average), but unfortunately it means I have pond, half of which is trapped under the carpet lining the footwell.
- I've been press-ganged into joining an "everything but the gym[2]", so I can go and swim to my heart's content, that's when I'm not doing mock-pilates, or some Asian two single syllable words thing (that I'm not sure what they are yet). Ok so in all likelihood that's swimming, and only swimming.
- Petrol is expensive, or at least, moreso than last time I wanted to buy some (ok so this was a while ago, as my car doesn't get used much, hence the pond).
- Really ought to write down appointments and when I'm supposed to be meeting people, rather than having to panic.

[2] And the climbing wall, and the squash courts, and...

Oh and apparently pigeons do not fly as the crow flies - this is news? But I thought we already knew that lots of animals use linear or dominant features to aid navigation. Why risk wasting energy getting confused over an amorphous landscape of wooded gently rolling hills when there's a big pale marker that will get you to nearly where you want to be. So what if another species calls it the M40?

And which do you prefer? Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong dong dong dong...[you have to imagine the changes in pitch] or beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeep? Obviously for those of you who really have nothing better to do with your time (well ok so the quote quiz [top right] trumps it in that category, and it's not my fault Brent and Tennyson are about on a par).

Is this the one the US Army let people burn stuff around (and thus wreck any chances of accurately carbon dating it)? There was something else done as well which would wreck the ability of anyone to work out where the man came from or grew up (I think it was something to do with the phosphorus types and levels within the bones, but I could be completely out on this). Oh and some of them disappeared along the way.

I thought they only did that in films and cartoons - boy jumps off building, lands on awning, unhurt.

Somewhat less fortunate: Zimbabwe getting ever more worse.

And on that merry thought, I’ll end it.
Anyhoo,

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