Fe Man

Spoilers Spoilers




The problem, surely, with a fake Mandarin is that people would recognize him as a cheesy English character actor - at least his friends, "Isn't that Bert in a beard" if not actually "Hey, he played the gardener in Midsomer Murders five years ago" from absolutely everybody.  He didn't look as if he'd had plastic surgery.

Housman

If I did ever pay the over $200 necessary to get a copy of the Oxford complete Housman I would get many unread light verses, of which this one shows up in the Amazon teaser.

The silent screen vamp Theda Bara

Dear Mr. Rosenbaum,

Few things are quite as irritating as coming across on page 487 a passage that would have, if encountered earlier, led one to heave the book into the wastepaper basket and get on with one's life.

You write

He draws on his decidedly arcane knowledge of popular culture history to give me an example.
"There was a rumor that the the silent-film actress Theda Bara chose her name because it was a close anagram of 'death arrow'.  That had nothing to do with it, it was simply that she was Theodosia Goodman and needed a new name and chose Theda Bara.  But even if she didn't have the slightest intention for it, the 'death arrow' rumor affected the way audiences saw her. (I couldn't help wondering if there was an intentional or inadvertent linkage between 'death arrow' and "Shake-speare")

Three second's thought suffices to indicate that Booth did not say that Theda Bara was a close anagram of 'death arrow' but rather that it was a precise anagram of 'arab death'. Because
(a) it is,
(b) there is no such thing as a 'close anagram' and never has been,
(c) the rumor was, in fact, historically, that Theda Bara was an anagram of 'arab death';
"In promoting the 1917 film Cleopatra, Fox Studio publicists noted that the name was an anagram of Arab death"

(justfuckinggoogleit.com/‎)

 What, then, can one deduce from this episode of crystalline vacuity?

1) you don't think about what you write;
2) you don't keep adequate notes of your interviews:
3) absolutely everything touches off an occasion for the exercise of your conviction that your lightest thought is worthy of print.

 I acknowledge that the fault is partly mine. I had, after all, read as far as page 487.

I trust that you will be prepared to take on the remainder of the responsibility for my wasted time.

Yours,

Chris Borthwick


The silent screen vamp Theda Bara
Was born in the desert Sahara
It was, was it not,
The Oasis of Tuat,
And what, one might ask, could be fairer?

The Force, meh

What I always found odd about Star Wars 1 was that Vader was really only a third-rank public servant - subject to the orders of Grand Moff Tarkin, for god's sake, placing him at about the level of Moff, or even Lieutenant-Moff.  The use of the Force to subdue opposition in a staff meeting is all very well, but if he'd actually had a senior post in the Death Star Hierarchy Vader could just have drawn everybody's attention to the coming round of promotion evaluations and got unanimous nods. What's the point of being right-hand man to the Emperor, with back-channel access, if you can't even ram through your policies without argument?  Dick Cheney didn't make the mistake of relying on his lightsaber skills to get into a position to destroy planets.  Well, nations, but it's on the spectrum.





On 18/04/2013, at 10:36 AM, Alan Matic wrote:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/star-wars-actor-richard-leparmentier-dies-aged-66/story-e6frfmq9-1226623039410

Wasps

On the way to the bus stop this morning I walked through a swarm of wasps, on the narrow corner of Garnet and Shamrock streets, and was savagely stung around the head.
If this is going to happen every day it will be most annoying.
It could be worse, mind; father was allergic, and it would just about have killed him.

Myki

Rosemary can't discuss Myki without collapsing in a frothing heap, and I try to calm her down: but it's not easy when they do things like this.....

I want to use the much-touted auto topup, whereby money is transferred automatically to the card when it gets low.

I go to the myki site:
I go to Topup and sign in there:
In my account, I click Top up myki;

You can top up as you go or set up myki auto top up for 'set and forget' convenience.
Choose the myki below you wish to top up or set up auto top up for. 

I choose a card;

Auto top up is even better
Auto top up is a smart and convenient way to make sure your myki is always ready to use. All you do is set up an automatic direct debit from your bank account or credit card to your myki. Just set and forget!
Here's how to do it. Once you receive your myki, the account holder can set myki auto top up. You only need to fill in a form if you choose automatic direct debit from your bank account (no form is required for credit card). You can fill it out online by going to myki auto top up request form or call 13 6954 (13 myki) and we'll send you one.

I go to myki auto top up request form, as requested, and find that it sends me to the form that the above passage says is not required - a form that for credit card payment involves a signature, printing out the form, and posting it. Unless I'm missing something completely, there is no way on that page to submit anything electronically. 

AAAH.  That's it. When that says "You can fill it out online by going to..." it means the form, not the automatic direct debit: for that you click 'Next", below. 

Appallingly written for its meaning.  What is needed is a statement that 

Here's how to do it. Once you receive your myki, the account holder can set myki auto top up.

•           Online, by credit card only  - click NEXT
•           By filling out a form and sending it in, by direct debit from your bank or by credit card - here

         You only need to fill in a form if you choose automatic direct debit from your bank account (no form is required for credit card). You can fill it out online by going to myki auto top up request form or call 13 6954 (13 myki) and we'll send you one.

So true

German aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799):

• “There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.”