Barkerburgh

I didn’t even know this guy and I just got this email!

So who needs a new house? Whose kids need to go to university abroad? Who needs exotic surgery in foreign climes?

(Italics mine.)

“MANAGING PARTNER
GRAPEVINE & ASSOCIATES LAW FIRM
LONDON - UK.
NOTIFICATION OF BEQUEST

Hello,
On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr.Huish Shearmur;I again try to notify you as my first letter was returned undelivered yet i tried still to reach you again by this same email address stated on the WILL.He left the sum of Seven Million One Hundred Thousand Dollars(USD$7,100.000.00 ) to you in the codicil and last testament of his WILL.
Late Engr. Huish Shearmur died on the 13th day of march, 2006 at the age of 80 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution.Please endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible at grapevinelawfirm@hotmail.co.uk to enable me conclude my job and give you more detailed information about his WILL.

yours in Service,

BARRISTER ANDREW MARTIN ESQ”

The lineup starts now.

I heard a young man recite this on CNN, during an item on the North Carolina fire that killed several members of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity from the University of South Carolina. He was speaking about his late fraternity brothers.

It’s a little dated - and even sexist, in the sense that it could - and should - apply to women too, in any age, but I like the feel and the flavour of it.

---

The True Gentleman
The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.

—John Walter Wayland (Virginia Omicron Chapter 1899)

---

References
Delta House
Robot House

---

Edited on October 30 to correct location of fire and students’ school.

Am I impressed? Not so much. (more…)

So Tracy Barlow, after several months living with neighbourhood jerk Charlie Stubbs, the local builder, finally bashed his brains in with a bookshelf sculpture - he lingered for a while in hospital - and got arrested, all the time proclaiming her guilt but her love for him, even though we all know that she’s hated his guts ever since she found out about his fling with Maria from Audrey’s beauty shop down the street, which was convenient for both of them since Maria moved into Charlie’s old flat when Charlie moved in with Tracy in the Harris’s old house (which Charlie bought just to piss off Craig’s grandfather who was living there to look after Craig after his mother went to jail and his sister committed suicide after killing their father) , but after Tracy found out about the affair she started this long term plot/plan to make Charlie’s reputation among the neighbours even worse than it was after what he did to Shelley - who’s having his baby, but she moved away without telling him - by faking domestic disturbances and burning herself with an iron and letting neighbourhood good-heart and goody-two-shoes Claire think was done by Charlie, all the while denying he did it but smirking to herself every time, and of course Tracy’s family are supporting her, even her unrelated brother, Peter (her stepfather Ken’s son by a late ex-wife) and her usually fairly sensible mother, Deirdre and harridan gran Blanche, but not so much by her unrelated nephew Adam (Ken’s grandson through his late daughter, Peter’s sister, and Ken’s recently deceased arch-enemy, Mike Baldwin) and, of course, Claire totally believes that Tracy was suffering from battered woman syndrome - even though she wasn’t - and she’s starting a petition to get the charges against Tracy reduced to manslaughter and get her bail because she was denied bail due to the violence of her attack on Charlie (and maybe a flight risk too) , which pleases Tracy no end because everybody likes Claire and Tracy has no qualms about manipulating everybody and everything around her any way she can to get what she wants and has been doing so for the last few years ever since she came back to Weatherfield and Coronation Street.

Damn, it takes your breath away.

It doesn’t last long enough.
It takes too long.
It lasts just long enough.

There’s no place to put it, or there’s no room for it anyway, or you forget where you put it just when you really need it.
If you ever remember where you did put everything, you never remember where it all was to start with.

It takes too long to get everywhere and there’s never enough time.
It’s always too far from where you are to where everything all is, and then you don’t want to have to come all the way back.

Even if you’re really interested in everything, it’s way too easy to get distracted by everything else.

It’s too small.
It’s too big.

Some of it costs too much.
There’s too much free stuff.

Everybody else is into it all, too.
You have to share everything with everybody else.

The choice of size, colour and style is too broad.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
There’s too many parts of the whole.
Each individual part of the sum is as interesting as every other part.

You never remember everything’s name.
The signage is too complicated, if there’s any signage at all.
The instructions are too complicated, if there’s any instructions at all.

If it was a movie, it would probably be a prize-winning foreign film without subtitles.
If it was a book, it would probably be all table of contents, endnotes, appendix, and index.
If it was a game, it would calvinball. Or fizbin.

If it was a computer application, it would be from Microsoft (which would make Bill Gates God, so never mind that one.)

Christians see everything as Christian. Communists see everything as Communist. Bolivians see everything as Bolivian. Mac users - well, Mac users.

Everything’s too high. It’s too long. It’s too much. It’s too good.

If everything was a poem, it would be the Aeneid. All except for the part about finally arriving in Italy, because you never - ever- get to Italy.

There’s too much to choose from in a reasonable amount of time.

In the end, you never find what you really needed anyway.
You never get what you really wanted either.

But somewhere in the chaos of everything, you just might find your heart’s desire. Even if you don’t really quite know exactly what that is. Or just where it might be out there.  Wondering and searching are half the joy of everything.

If everything was time, it would always be about to run out.

<hr />

Edited/Improved Monday, October 22, 2007

And thank you, Peter, Leslie and Simon.

They invited me to join them on Thanksgiving Day.

First we went to the ancient and mysterious ‘Crawford Lake‘ , on the Niagara Escarpment near Milton, where I partly grew up. Crawford Lake is a scientific marvel because it is meromictic. This means that the water layers within the small, deep lake never mix, or ‘turn over’; there are few if any currents within the lake and sediments are laid down in predictable, datable and unmixed sequences that can be dated, analyzed and have data extrapolated from them. Apparently, sedimentary analysis predicted the existence (and probable location, too, I think) of a local pre-Columbian aboriginal village, which has been reconstructed on its original site. Very interesting.

The lake is surrounded by a railed boardwalk which, while allowing people near the lake to see it or observe it, nevertheless keeps them away from it; swimming, drinking or any kind of interference or pollution is forbidden, so delicate is the lake and so important is it scientifically and historically. Very cool.

Then, for dinner, we went down to Burlington to Joan’s (Peter’s mother) 10th floor apartment overlooking Burlington Bay / Hamilton Harbour. What a view!

Dinner was a spread! Ham, garlic mashed potatoes, carrots, squash, brussel sprouts, cabbage, corn relish, hot mustard, wine, water, I don’t remember what else, but there was more. I ate like a mediaeval guest. Who hadn’t eaten all day, practically.

Leslie and Peter were, as usual, fine company. Joan is always interesting, and but for a brief fit of the crunkles, Simon was his usual well-behaved sensible self. So was I.

All in all, a day to be thankful for.

I’m not entering NaNoWriMo this year, but instead will work on finishing my last year’s project which so many of you contributed ideas to.

I have transferred the research and background notes to MediaWiki - a freakin’ godsend for this sort of thing, as you well know I know well - and will use that to carry on.

I won’t say I’ll hit 50,000 words, but I may very well go over…

There will be much and sincere wishing of luck starting…Now.

…<font title=”Pushing Daisies - seen the premiere thrice - and it kicks - but don’t tell anyone…”>but I can’t talk about the ones I really like, or they’ll get cancelled</font>.

Wow, it sure is ugly. What a mess.

It’s more than a little appalling that there’s artistic types all over the city patting each other on the ass and telling themselves the ROMperor’s new clothes are haute cuisine.