Month: June 2006

Once again my mobile got disconnected, which proves that I am really really bad with bank account management and shouldn’t paint any illusions.

Anyway, today I went to CYTA to pay my bills. With their new computer systems things are pretty fast now. I am at the counter and the nice lady tells me the outstanding balance, I pay, she gives me the receipt. I know that my mobile will be connected in a few minutes, but just to make sure I ask her “When will my phone be re-connected?”.

Her face lightens up, she looks at me like I am the stupid person on Earth, when most of that Earth population were telling her, that she is, and she says: “Soon!”. I smiled.

Of course, she meant that it will get re-connected very soon, in just a few minutes. But the way she said it… Let me just express it in a better way:

1. Paying the phone bill – 78 CYP.
2. Asking the re-connection question – 0 CYP.
3. Expression on the clerk’s face – PRICELESS!!!

This should probably go into my profile or something like that, but I’ll post it here first. This is the map of my world. Those red countries are the ones I’ve visited or lived in during my life. It’s not completely fair, as it paints the whole country even if I’ve seen just a tiny bit of it. But for what it’s worth, it gives the idea. Needless to say that I am going to paint the red much more of that world. My stats for now – 8 countries, which is about 3% of all.

You can generate your own map here.

Here’s just one example of how mass media craps in your brain – an article in The Inquirer about Dell laptop explosion. I picked this one as it is number one in Bloglines’ Top Links for June 21, 2006.

Read it. You’ll notice a whole bunch of crap that was intended for your brain. Need any hints? Here are a few:

• “Dell laptop” (why on earth the brand of the laptop is important in this single case?)
• “exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident” (I’m sorry… deadly?)
• “his advice is …stay away, away, away” (Stupid Silly… Unplug the damn thing! Or cut the power in the room. It’s all about electricity.)
• “For the record, this is a Dell machine” (for which record? And why are you so sure and concerned about it anyway?)
• “It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane” (Oh, p’lease! It’s just a laptop. Even if something like this will ever happen on the plane, a trained stuard will take of the fire with fire extinguisher. You don’t have to scary everyone just yet.)

There’s more.

Either it’s all is a joke, or I don’t get it. Damn! I don’t get it even if it’s a joke…

Most of my Flickr favourites come from just two groups – The 50 mm lense group and The Black and White group. I am following a bunch of other groups too, but these two have the best bad to good ratio.

Can you recommend any other good Flickr groups?