Category: by Barbie-dull

Posts originally in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull between 2005 and 2008.

Life is the only game in town

There is this card game that I’ve been playing on my pda for 5+ years. It’s a solitaire. Railroad. Not every game is winnable.

Considering that every time I deal the cards for a new game the score goes down 52 points and every time I move a card to the foundation stacks the score increases by 10, my goal is to move up at least 6 cards.

There are games which delight me. “ooh! lovely, more than I expected” and “ooh! excellent, far more than I expected. Maybe I’ll win this one”.

And there are games which make me frown and sometimes sulk.“hmpf! just one card up?” and “oh no! so close to 6!”.

And of course there are situations when I have to choose between two actions. There is no “undo”, naturally. In which case, it will either delight me or make me frown.

I’ve played around 15000 games (wow, that’s an average of 10 per day!) and only 3 times was there the situation when I deal the cards and the game is instantly lost. An on very few occasions was there only one thing to do before losing the game.

Anyway, where I was getting at is that over the last few days two notable things occured. While I was listening to a song I noticed in the lyrics something like “life is a game and love is the trophy” which made me nod and mutter “hmm-huh”. and while browsing the web later I paid particular attention to the following words about life “yeah, life is messy but it’s the only game in town”. I was reminded of those last night when I played the cards game. In fact, when I was happy to score a lot, I thought I would like to feel likewise about the other *game*. Heh, maybe get a trophy as well!.

More vibrant

I’m happy when I can listen to music.
I listen to music most of the time (except, of course, while attending teleconferences).
Even when I sleep, music plays.

And when I use headphones (I’m the proud and satisfied owner of Sony MDR-EX71 earbuds),
this is when I am happiest and when the music is the most vibrant.

Massive attack!

I was one of the lucky thousands of people who were at the Massive Attack concert in La Pinède of Juan les Pins, FR.

The concert was *awesome*

They performed almost two hours. The sound quality was amazing for an outdoor concert (by the sea, among pine trees). The light effects were beautifully arranged to accompany their music.

They did ‘Inertia Creeps’ and I thought I’d faint 😉 A shame that they didn’t do ‘Spying Glass’ (yup, my two favourites).

Their music made me so goosebumpy that I was cold (and it was a hot night on the riviera –28 to 30 C)

The ceremony of the telephone

There is a whole ceremonial around the telephone at my parents’, that I take a certain pleasure to witness. The time is chosen carefully, and generally well in advance. Their side of the conversation is often prepared, sometimes even rehearsed. A list of topics may be written, too. Spare paper and pencil are made available, of course. Reference material, related documents, files, copies, depending on the nature of the call, are brought in.

Before there was a cordless phone in their home, my parents would take the telephone to the living room table, as close to my mother’s papers and documents as its cord would allow, and she would place it carefully next to her notes.

Since the arrival of the cordless phone, the ceremonial of the telepone takes place in the living room for business matters, or in the kitchen for personal matters.

In any case, my mum and dad sit next to each other. In any case, the loudspeaker is on. More often than not, my mum does the talking 😉 It’s funny how loud she speaks when she’s on the phone. She denies speaking louder, of course 😉

I’m not such a phone person myself. I seldom place phone calls, sometimes fail to return them (bad me). People are kind enough with me to not bear grudges.

I’ve had my current cellphone for two years and a half and here are the duration counts:

  Received calls' duration: 47:57:54
  Dialled calls' duration:  50:06:24

It’s a little late now and I’m a tad tired (and I suck at maths, granted), but I think that amounts to about 3 minutes per day. Heh, not that bad, after all.