Jibber Jabber

Ah well, another week has gone… We’re at just about mid-fall right now, and the leaves are doing their thing, so much as leaves in London ever do their thing. There are few trees that put on a proper autumn-show, but a lot more typical is the London Plane, which seems to engage in an ongoing battle with its leaves every fall. One at a time, probably during the night, they crinkle into a sort of yicky brown, then fall to the ground with a slight crackling thud. Very unlike, say, a sugar maple, where some bit of inner choreography celebrates the shortening days with a riot of color before the leaves commit mass suicide and plonk to the cold ground. Unfortuantely, London has a lot more London Planes than it does sugar maples, which may go some way to explaining their name… Hmm…

I’ve managed to catch a minor cold, it seems. Sore throat, general mild crappiness. Not bad, considering that I work in an office full of unhealthy, chain smoking, grease-consuming lardybutts. I still managed to go out for a 55 mile bike ride yesterday – I figured maybe I could scare away the cold germs.

Saturday night, Avi came over, and David, Robin, Avi and I sat around, eating junk food, and watched four episodes of BS Gallactica. Fabulous way to spend an evening.

A random observation from the work shower… Someone there has shampoo with ‘Extract of Horse Chestnut’. This seems odd, as horsechestnut contains a blood poison, and the Native Americans used to use a relative – buckeye, to stun the fish in water. Why one would want to rub this in one’s hair is beyond me – perhaps it tames wild hair?

And tomorrow we have an all-day ‘away day’. An away day is where the entire department spends the entire day listening to bullshit presentations and some amount of self-esteem or communications related drivel. This time, their idea for a ‘lunchtime activity’ (mandatory, of course) is a group singing session by some woman who thinks she can teach non-singers, llamas, and corduroy to sing (http://www.singalive.org/about.php). I’ve informed my boss that there are several important things about being a grown-up… 1. I don’t have to eat foods I don’t like, and 2. I don’t have to sing. I mean, really – where do they get off thinking that people in an IT department are going to want to stand around and sing KumBaYa?

Not much else exciting – it’s been pretty dull – hence my lack of entries…