Virtual vehicles for the metaverse
Topics concerning that thing known as ‘real life’ and not virtual worlds.
The package arrived. The sender: Treefen of Icklenet.com. It was a plain, brown envelope that was completely encased in transparent tape. I found a crowbar and opened it.
Inside was a pink, handmade envelope. And inside that was a little tin with Donald Duck on it. And inside that were four lovely little penguin magnets — the runner-up prize for the Ickle Fiction blogiversary contest.
These are very cool little things. All hand-made, it seems. And penguins too. Thank you, T. Yer neat-o.
On a serious note, I’d like to take a moment to discuss a problem of mine. A friend pointed this out to me this morning, and I have to admit to myself that it is, in fact, true.
I have a problem with take-out bags.
Last night, I met up with Lara and Leanne for dinner at Raga — an excellent Indian restaurant on West Broadway that’s conveniently near Toys ‘R’ Us (you never know when you might need to buy an action figure to play with during your meal). I ordered a spicy shrimp vindaloo, Leanne ordered a spinach thing that had too many vowels in it, and Lara chose a sampler plate with tandoori chicken.
As an aside, Lara often claims that she hates chicken and never eats it. “I never eat of the dirty bird,” she says. Yet there she was with a plate full of the stuff. Ha!
Ha!, I say.
Anyway, by the end of the meal, it looked like there was more than we could finish, so we asked for the rest as take-out. And to cut a long, non-story short, we left it behind on the table.
According to Leanne that was the third time I’ve done it this year. What a waste. All that lovely vindalooey stuff. But perhaps I should take it in stride, for as Euripides once wrote: “Waste not fresh tears over old vindaloos.”
Or as Aesop wrote in The Lion and the Mouse: “No shrimp vindaloo, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
And as a parting thought, I’d like to share these lines from Shakespeare’s sonnet 30:
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my vindaloo’s waste
On May 16th, two excellent friends of mine — Christine and Edgar — became parents of a bouncing baby boy. I asked them to stop bouncing him, but they wouldn’t listen to reason. From the proud father:
Hola a todos,
Les escribo para darles una buena el viernes 16 de mayo a las 7:35 PM (Vancouver Time) – 9:35 (Peruvian Time) nacio Diego William Lazarte-Norquist. Tanto Diego como Christine estan muy bien. Todos estamos un poco cansados pero recuperandonos poco a poco.
I am really proud of them. Christine is amazying, she is so strong. Diego likes to suck all the times. He is really cute.
Aqui les estoy enviando una foto de Diego minutos despues de haber nacido.
Well, I have to go now. Tomorrow I have to go to work and leave everything in order so I can take a week off.
Bueno, un saludo a todos
Edgar.
Happy zeroth birthday, Diego! My heartiest congratulations to all three of you!
Monday has rolled around again, only this time I’m at my desk at home. As all Canadians know, today is Victoria Day, also known at various times as Queen’s Birthday, Empire Day, or Commonwealth Day. So back in 1837, presumably Victoria popped out and started her long journey towards becoming the sovereign of the British Empire. Fast-forward to 2003, and we still honour her memory by hopping into our cars, driving someplace sunny for the weekend, and consuming way too many beers. I’m sure she’d approve.
I didn’t manage to get away this weekend, but that’s partly because I’m faced with a dilemma: to go for a nice long walk along the water’s edge or to spend the day in my cubicle. I know, it’s a tough one isn’t it?
The problem is that I have a deadline to meet on Friday. It’s the biggie. The one deadline that my team has been working towards. We wrote three new manuals and rebuilt the online help. It’s a big deal. For my part, my work is pretty much finished already, so I don’t need to show up, strictly speaking. But appearances are important. Also, I plan to work next Saturday and/or Sunday.
I think I’ll put on my shoes and see which way they take me.
My neighborhood is in a state of transition. Once, fifty to seventy years ago, it was a residential neighborhood. Over the decades, light industry took over, replacing homes with warehouses and factories. Now the industrial buildings are vanishing and the popular False Creek developments threaten to encroach on the empty land.