the class-o-matic

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Design like your life depends on it.

Because if you're doing it right, it does. from http://twitter.com/AngryPaulRand

9 comments:

leplumagegris said...: YES!! this guy posts the most interesting - and sometimes scary - tweets! may I ask how you got yourself onto that website, Sir?; 12:14 PM
Radio Free Pescado said...: a ex student pointed me, rather funny it was.

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.
I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.
I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.
Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.
It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.
You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?
In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.
Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work.
We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.
Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.
The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.; 2:49 PM
Wurood said...: I miss your stories! I really do! No one tells stories like you do sir! You seem to always meet the weirdest people.; 10:00 PM
Radio Free Pescado said...: Thanks Woo, but I must say in the sprit of full disclosure - that my students are often the strangest creatures to me. For example, recently, the Owl girl, Bow Tie Wizard, Blaze Oversizzle and Fire Boy .... nutters all, real fruitcakes.. ha; 11:11 AM
Radio Free Pescado said...: oh and, I almost forgot, Slow Mo; 11:12 AM
leplumagegris said...: could you describe me the taste of a fruitcake, Sir?
I've never had any and they look like a block of baby food mixed with multi-colored - mostly red - beads. inedible in my opinion.; 7:11 PM
Radio Free Pescado said...: Fruit cake is, frankly, inedible, much like the rest of England's traditional fare. Imagine - crudely dyed and overly candied fruits, set in a heavy, coarse , dense and dry tasteless cake of dates and suet, submerged in cheap sherry, rum or some other swill which is then put in a tin for a year. This foul concoction, is then apportioned to its victims, in lieu of an actual Christmas gift. I thought of it as yet more proof of the featureless cruelty of Protestant Christmases past.; 9:10 PM
Kirill said...: I just got back home from school.. been there since 8:30.. this story put a smile on my face :) Thank you!; 6:36 PM
Radio Free Pescado said...: good, and I hope your happy at school K; 8:04 PM

Thursday, September 09, 2010

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