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Asides

Extra bits and links

Sep 07 2008
Love0

My internetz are broken

By Asides

My ISP, XNet, appears to be under­go­ing some kind of cata­stroph­ic mal­func­tion at the moment as my home DSL and home tele­phone are down; none of their web sites are avail­able from work (where I am at the moment) and their tele­phone num­ber is either not being answered or Telecom have a “this call could not be con­nec­ted” mes­sage depend­ing on when you try it.

This is a bit of a bug­ger, to say the least, as I had set aside today to catch-up on a lot of stuff and most of it was Internet-related.

Enforced idle­ness on a sunny day. What will I do with myself?

Aug 26 2008
Love0

Curse these human feelings ...

By Asides

I still fully expect to dance down the street singing “Ding dong, the witch is dead” when she finally snuffs it, but I was still quite moved when I read this quote from a new book by Margaret Thatcher’s daugh­ter Carol:

Dementia meant she kept for­get­ting he (her hus­band, Denis) was dead. I had to keep giv­ing her the sad news over and over again. Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her hus­band of more than 50 years, she’d look at me sadly and say, ‘Oh’, as I struggled to com­pose myself. ‘Were we all there?’ she’d ask softly.”

You don’t wish that on anyone.

[via The Guardian]
Aug 25 2008
Love0

It's the same wherever you go

By all blacks, Asides, Literature, Sport

It’s the same wherever you go – that des­per­ate search for a pub when the All Blacks are play­ing. Even if you are Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

We meet the irre­press­ible Anglican arch­bish­op and Nobel Prize win­ner Desmond Tutu, stran­ded in San Francisco and look­ing for a bar that might broad­cast the rugby game … (the 1995 World Cup Final)

[John Carlin’s new book, “Playing the Enemy”, reviewed in the New York Times]
Aug 15 2008
Love0

What have I learnt this week?

By Asides

What have I learnt this week?

During study, when not­ing an import­ant part of a book, write the page num­ber beside it. You know, so you can find it again later.

Aug 05 2008
Love0

A good idea

By Asides, Food & Drink

I love this idea:

Speaking of caring, though, no dis­cus­sion about cof­fee would be com­plete without men­tion­ing the Neapolitan tra­di­tion of the “caffè pagato”, the paid-for cof­fee. What hap­pens is after you’ve con­sumed your cus­tom­ary morn­ing espresso some­times you’ll choose to pay double, and leave a paid-for cof­fee. Thanks to this prac­tice, the place will be able to cater for a few known cus­tom­ers who could­n’t oth­er­wise afford their daily tazzulella ‘e cafè, without them hav­ing to ask or you hav­ing to offer.

I’d like to think it might save some of our beloved seni­ors from hav­ing to beg for the free cups at McDonald’s.
[via a post by Giovanni Tiso in the epic cof­fee thread at Public Address System]

Jul 14 2008
Love0

Mastroianni via Ebert

By Asides, Cinema

Roger Ebert repeats an anec­dote told him by Marcello Mastroianni about film­ing the fam­ous Trevi Fountain splash­about in La Dolce Vita:

“The water, it was‑a very cold,” He said. “Fellini, he shoots again and again. Finally, the time for the close shot of my fin­gers reach­ing to touch‑a her cheek. I am always smoking, smoking, smoking. My fin­gers, the nicotine!”

He held them up to illustrate.

“Anita’s skin is ala­baster white. Fellini, he looks‑a my fin­gers against her skin, and shouts, Marcello! When‑a you gonna learn the right way to wipe‑a your ass?”

Made me laugh anyway.

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