You won’t make progress in the way that you think you will. Progress comes in from the side, and you suddenly realise that you have taken a step forward without knowing it.

It’s very uplifting to realise that you’re better at something than you thought you were. It’s like seeing the first shoots of a new plant — it’s been growing all along, it’s just been under the surface of the soil.

So anyway, here’s a photo :)

I was on about £30 a month, but was after something different. My mobile is knackered, and I wanted 300 minutes and 300 texts — they’ve given me 400 minutes (anytime, any network) and 1000 texts — for £15 a month and a new phone into the bargain.

I’m really pleased. Read Martin Lewis’s article about haggling with your phone company — there wasn’t a lot of haggling though, just phoned up and asked for something better and they gave it to me.

It’s amazing what money you can save with just a bit of attention and hard work. It’s like claiming back overdraft charges. My friends tell me they’ve been charged, like, £9000 in charges and they’re not fussed about trying to get it back. What’s the worst that can happen — the bank will say no.

Anyway, Martin’s website is a good read for stuff about money — especially the overdraft reclaim article.

The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

Seth Godin

This information comes, of course, from wikipedia, but it’s all about the Kate Beaton comic I read just this morning.

You should read the wikipedia article about Charles Guiteau, it’s quite interesting. Plus it contains the phrase, “he was blissfully oblivious to the American public’s outrage and hatred of him.”

I like the way wikipedia articles are written with a sense of humour. I really do.

Leave a comment if you get it.

Update! Or if you’re actually a real person who reads this site :)

..

Yes, that’s right I’m talking about aborted ellipses. Also this:

…..

Is this a super ellipsis, or a normal one with an aborted one attached?

Hey, important question..who’s seen the stapler?

What did you mean to do? Did you end that first sentence twice, or did you insert a dramatic pause after drawing our attention to the gravity of office stationery? Let’s get it together people.

In unrelated news, I am eating a bacon sandwich, and yesterday was a good day.

They’re gorgeous flowers, but being a biology graduate I can’t escape their function. Why is it that we present the severed reproductive organs of another species to each other to convey the message, “I love you”?

Update!

My friend Dave just brought this to my attention. It’s from 1 Samuel 18:25-27 (NIV):

Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’ ” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines.

When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king’s son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, David and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

Thanks Dave!

Who am I mis-quoting? That’s right! Charles Darwin, who, after studying barnacles for years and years, wrote,

I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship. My first vol. is out: the only part worth looking at is on the sexes of Ibla & Scalpellum; I hope by next summer to have done with my tedious work.

Great for sorting your all your spelling mistakes even in on-line forms and internet email. Your words are underlined in red just how MS Word does it!! Gives me confidence to type and not look like a nob.

Does that make me immature?

:D

:D

Did you spot the best thing ever? No? Well I can’t say I’m surprised. You see, folks, I used the correct pronoun. I could have written “It was me who phoned”, which would have been more appropriate given the informality of emails in general, but I thought better of it and decided to be more grammatical. Besides, I liked the way it sounded dramatic. The email was about a completely trifling matter, but there’s no point being bland and well-balanced when you can ham something up to operatic levels.

It’s these small victories that help keep a linguistic man sane, you know.

The computer is not clever: the programmer is. Google is clever because the guys that set it up are clever. Clever at computers (their search engine was revolutionary when it first came out) and clever at business (they didn’t sell out to Microsoft or Yahoo when they came up with their search engine).

Your iPhone is not clever. The developers at Apple are clever. They’re the ones that designed it and pushed it through the polishing process. A piece of technology that’s simple and easy to use takes twice as much ingenuity and innovation (or more than that) to make than a complicated, hard-to-use product.