the purpose

of riches

So He brought His people out with joy,
His chosen ones with singing,
He gave them the lands of the nations,
and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples,
that they might keep his statutes and observe His laws.
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 105:43-45

Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who bought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the the house of slavery.
Deuteronomy 8:11-15

four euros

worth of excitement

I met someone yesterday who was very excited about four euros, excited enough to start kissing random strangers.

Are four euros really that exciting? Sure thing. Four euros is a croissant, a coffee and a then a pain au chocolat because you've still got the munchies. It could also be a sandwich for lunch, three rides on the tram or two big coins that you can stick over your eyes and pretend are monocles!

So next time you look in your wallet and all you see is four euros (or six canadian dollars), just remember: you've got a pocketful of excitment.

dieter rams

ten principles that define good design:

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.

french turkeys

not so large, it seems

So this morning, I went turkey hunting. Not turkey hunting in the usualy sense of the work hunting. Instead of creeping about on foot, I took my bike. Rather than moving steathily from copse to copse, I wore a bright orange fleece sweather as I moved from boucherie to boucherie. Actually, I only found two, so it didn't actually take that long.

Anyhow, the French tend to only order turkeys around the french holidays. Strange, but anyways, it makes it difficult to find turkeys for Canadian thanksgiving. Eventually (read: at the second boucherie) I was told that they might be able to get turkeys, but that they wouldn't me any larger than 4 kg. 4 kg!! That's 9 pounds! A capon turkey, if you will. When I asked for a 10-15 kg turkey, the dude laughed and said they didn't exist. grrrr.....

Sigh...

France: where everything is smaller.

(p.s. boucherie = meat shop. Think European Meats in Kensington)

stupid and mean

dangerous combination

As part of our introduction to seismology course, we will be giving informal seminars on famous historical earthquakes (San Francisco 1906, Sumantra, etc...), or the seismology of a particular region, all in an effort to give us some background on the subject.

Yesterday, at the beginning of class, three brave souls volunteered to give to inaugural presentation. However, by the end of the class, two of them remembered that they didn't have internet and at the thought of doing research at an internet cafe, their bravery failed them, and so the prof decided to ask for volunteers who had internet access.

Those of you who know me (which is probably everyone who reads this) will know that paying careful attention to everything that goes on in class is not my forte. When I heard that a volunteer with internet was required, I assumed it was because my classmates were having trouble downloading the course materials. So fools leap in and all that, and I stuck my hand up and told everyone that they could come by my room with a USB key and I would happily give them the files. I suspect the prof was a bit puzzled by my response, since it had nothing to do with what he was actually asking, but he wasn't about to let an internet-enabled volunteer slip through his hands.

And so, it dawned on me that I had just volunteered, not to download files for people, but to give a presentation. Dumb.

But this is not the end of the story. Don't worry, it's not time to stop procrastinating, not yet. After the true import of my actions had sunk in, I realized that Prof. Campillo was staring fixedly at me, and saying that he needed one more volunteer. If I was being offered the chance to choose who I would work with, I wasn't about to let it slip through my fingers. Ignoring the fact that he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to the proceedings, I said "George!", and this was apparently funny, since everyone laughed. Mean.

Watch out world, not only am I stupid, I'm mean. Who needs enemies with a friend like me?