Brown liquid not completely unlike tea

March 15th, 2008 § Comments Off on Brown liquid not completely unlike tea § permalink

Source: WikipediaI had earl grey tea in Starbucks the other day.

I know, I know, it was in a moment of weakness, I had skipped my breakfast and was in terrible need of something sweet and comforting. So I went and ordered it. They even allowed me to pick a tea bag I liked, so I thought, great, after last terrible experience with hot chocolate, with tea they can’t hurt me, right?
Guess again.
First thing, they managed to serve three coffee’s before I got my hot water and a tea bag. I don’t know why, maybe it was to give me impression that they were ‘preparing’ it properly.
And secondly, I was clumsy enough to stand by the counter and was able to observer the proccess. Wrong! Never do that, it’ll kill your appetite. They had the tea infused in a kettle, took a famous paper cup, spat some suspicious dark-brown stuff in it, spat another light-brown stuff in it and then poured the tea over.
Earl grey? Bergamot? I don’t think so. The thing tasted nothing like tea, but fitted perfectly the famous description from the title. Arthur, I feel your pain.
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28 hour day

March 15th, 2008 § Comments Off on 28 hour day § permalink

Source: Wikipedia28 hours

I bet everyone wishes his day would be a bit longer. There’s always this last thing, that you want to do before sleep, that makes you go to sleep two hours late, and the wake up hour is cruelly inflexible. Scientists were even doing experiments on it – they locked a bunch of people in cages and held them in artificial lighting to figure out the ‘natural’ biorhythm. It’s in fact suppose to be around 27 hours.
Well guess what. I found out that our civilization is indeed advanced enough to help you achieve this. It quite simple. All you need to do is move your office on a jet-plane and fly west. When you finish all your desk tasks, the plane lands, and the local time is roughly the same as when you started working! So you’ve done your job and still get the whole day for leisure or the second job.
So for instance, my perfect work week would consist of starting in London on Monday and flying to New York. Then flying to San Francisco on Tuesday, Tokyo on Wednesday, Delhi on Thursday, Dubai on Friday, then going to a random location in Europe to catch weekend parties. Of course you can vary the locations freely, the only thing you need to know is that the number of time-zones you change is roughly equal to hours you will save.
I can’t wait ’till jets become greener and affordable for personal use. That will be the next transport revolution.
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Departing from US

March 15th, 2008 § Comments Off on Departing from US § permalink

Source: ShutterstockBefore passport line, nice lady comes to me and says:
“Your airline has selected you…”
… uau I thought, while the brain was processing this part of the sentence, I obviously won something. Excellent”
“… for additional screening.”
… ???
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, just some additional screening”
… with an extremly nice and friendly voice, smilling and nodding and showing me the way.
I immediately remembered a friend of mine, who was telling horror stories about nearly missing the plane twice because of this. But here comes a twist.
I stepped bravely towards a security officer, who made me leave my stuff at the x-ray mashine and sent me to stand in a 2×1 meter larg aquarium in the middle of the airport. After some time, another one came, tapped my arms and legs, went trough my bag and that was it.
I was kind of dissapointed, I really expected a full body search or something, but this is something that happens on every European airport on a regular day.
So I guess, Americans are not that paranoid after all.
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Airports are ugly

March 13th, 2008 § Comments Off on Airports are ugly § permalink

Source: WikipediaAirports are one of the most nervous places in our civilization. They embody everything we stand for – instant coffee, noise, noise overrun by shouting, totalitarian control of the crowd, lack of taste, you name it.
It used to make me nervous as well. A simple fact of loud chaotic noise (which is completely different from contemporary noise electronic music btw) made me annoyed every time. I’ve discovered I can feel much better if I wear ear plugs. So I do, all the time, even when eaitng my brunch in the food court. Yes people look at me, but I don’t  care, it just feels so much better. I can still hear everything, only the sounds are more low and soft, and the world gets this feeling of dreaming or under-water swimming. Cosy.
I might start doing this when out downtown as well. Wearing those huge cover-earphones is not as comfortable.
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Hello, my name is Card, Card Identity

March 4th, 2008 § Comments Off on Hello, my name is Card, Card Identity § permalink

No, there’s no ‘on’ missing in the title. I actually received a name tag saying ‘izkaznica osebna’ from an uninformed gatekeeper in one of the London‘s prestiges business houses, after I’ve presented him with my ‘osebna izkaznica’ – identity card.
He somehow didn’t notice the bold-printed name following the word ‘name:’, nor the small print ‘identity card’ following the Slovenian version.
I guess it could be worse, he could have decided to write the only non-translated text from the card – “Republika Slovenija“.

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