May 23, 2005
July 31, 2004
Dinner with Bill Gates
Jeff Maurone, a Microsoft intern, had dinner with billg and wrote about it! Sweet.
July 30, 2004
Editor resigns over caption cockup
This is brilliant. The editor of Selkirk's Southern Reporter felt he had to resign after putting into print the following:
Via The Scotsman
Last week saw coverage on pages two and three of the Innerleithen-St Ronan’s Borders Games Week, with pictures featuring small children dressed in ecclesiastical outfits (as cardinals?) with no fewer than three large printed captions - in bold - saying: "CAPTION CAPTION about these pious little bleeders and the lady busser doing that interminably boring thing so cherished by Borders festivals. What on earth is going on in this picture? - these people have got to get out more often for their peace of mind and sanity."The Southern Reporter, which has a circulation of around 18,500, was named best weekly newspaper in Scotland in 2002 and 2003.
Norman Scott, treasurer of the games committee said, "Whoever wrote those words must be at least in league with the devil."
June 30, 2004
Random People
Couple of months ago I was in transit from San Francisco to here in Edinburgh. Flight was SFO - AMS, AMS - EDI so I was in Schipol for 4 hours or so. Although I usually don't like to be drunk when flying and it was about 10.30am, I sat at the Bar (the one just by the Casino with the funny lady bar steward who insults everyone and calls them 'lady' and 'man'). I spoke briefly to a couple of U.S. Servicemen who were en-route to Texas from Iraq; what's it like?, where were you?, you going back? and I tried to justify why cigarettes in the UK cost the equivalent of about $8USD. Then I was chatting with a guy from Germany for about an hour. We bought each other pints. He was leaving Germany to go to work in Hong Kong for a German Investment Bank, leaving his job, his family, his flat, his girlfriend, his football season ticket to explore a new opportunity. We talked about Hong Kong, European Integration, Iraq, even Football (which was tough). For an hour it was like we'd known each other for years though we'd never talked before and haven't talked since. Then the final boarding call for my flight was broadcast, I ran.
Somebody today pointed out that this site doesn't really tell you much about me, I'm 'discrete' apparently! So I've built a contact page and together we'll have conversations which might last for an hour or might last for a lifetime :-)