I just got into the lift with a woman who was carrying a large crate of sandwiches. I asked her what floor she wanted and she said five, so I hit five for her. She then said "No, five", so I hit it again. She looked puzzled and said "Five" again. I pointed at 4, she said, "Yes, that one. How do you pronounce it?"

ned 1 - am so proud of myself, that i did it!
ned 2 - you should be, you should be, you did well.
ned 1 - i just feel like i could have grabbed more, i wanted more of those things in boxes. i'm sorry.
ned 2 - hey, no need to apologize to me, you did good.


two dodgy looking blokes, going through a bag of stuff, it seemed so obvious to me that the first guy had been shop lifting, and the second guy was his contact, seemed to be all sorts of drug sub-context and desperation. though of course i didn't actually see them do anything, or hear anything concrete.

ballast point park overlooking Old Tampa Bay and downtown Tampa. I sit reading a book as TS Barry si whipping the winds up last week.

A satelitte truck is set up and a thre man cnn team is recording a segment.

Reporter- can you turn the lights down a bit?
Producer- Not really.
Reporter- It is just that I don't have any powder on and I don't want to be shiny.


Then later...

Reporter- This is Rob Marciano reporting from Tampa..... is Tampa big enough that I don't have to say Tampa, Florida?

A disheveled man speaking loudly in a cellphone in the aisle of a music store:

"I know about criminals, they never use their real name."

A little while later in a different aisle, but still at full volume:

"Let me do it. I'm out of work. I have nothing better to do. I'll call those bastards up and give the rag-head answering the phone a hardtime until they fix it."

quote:

Originally posted by editengine:
Tampa..... is Tampa big enough that I don't have to say Tampa, Florida?

caught the end of last night's TV program to find star for musical.

host - and here are your finalists keith from scotland and lee from essex.

james brown - whats a plump?
me - in what context?
james brown - weather!
me - no idea
girl - (looks at james as though he is daft) "its about to plump down, we're about to get a plump of rain" (rolls her eyes)
james brown - (pointing at desk of guy out of office) he'll know, he is from paisley.

Colleague: Did you have a good time celebrating your birthday this weekend?
Me: Yeah, the party turned out really well.
Colleague: You actually held a party? I know so many people who just hold brunch with a lot of toddlers invited.
Me and office mate: Roar with laughter
(as the party I held was brunch with lots of toddlers)

Frequent caller: *Whispers to coworker before I can greet them* "I hope I get [nightsleeper]".

11:20pm, girl drags boy onto late train heading south.
Girl: Fried egg sandwiches in the morning, ok?
–New Cross

quote:

Originally posted by Kradlum:
She looked puzzled and said "Five" again. I pointed at 4, she said, "Yes, that one. How do you pronounce it?"

Gold!

quote:

Originally posted by Sentinel400:

quote:

Originally posted by Kradlum:
She looked puzzled and said "Five" again. I pointed at 4, she said, "Yes, that one. How do you pronounce it?"

Gold!

Yeah, I thought so too. Reminded me of one of the very first bits of sociolinguistic research. I think this was the famous Garfinkel (I'm going back 20 years or so that I read this, so I may be wrong). But whoever the researcher was, he went into a series of New York department stores, and asked the information desk where he could find an item that he knew was actually on the fourth floor. He correlated the average price of stuff in the store with the pronunciation of the answer. In cheap stores, he was told "Faath flah", in expensive shops he was told "Forrth florr". The correlation was statistically significant.

So, how do YOU pronounce it?

Phorth!

Carlos, my gal is working on a project somewhere in Pretoria this week. She hates it!

Yeah, I call Pretoria "the city time forgot". It's definitely an acquired taste (my mom was from Pretoria, so I'm quite fond of it as my "mother city").

The late great SA muso James Phillips had a song for Pretoria called "Snor City", snor being a moustache, for all the civil servants in their safari suits and 'taches. Living dinosaurs. They're still there. Nothing changes in Pretoria, except that all the little shops are now run by Chinese immigrants.

It actually is probably the single weirdest city on earth, but it's much safer than Jo'burg. Tell your friend to go to a club called Steak 'n Ale if there is a band playing, it's my favourite venue in the whole world to play at, it's a real dive and very Pretoria, but they're very, very serious about music. And -- now that I think of it (just realised) -- there's a big mural of my old friend James Phillips on the wall.

Off the wall, now on the wall. James (aka Bernoldus Niemand, "niemand" being a very orthodox Afrikaans surname meaning "Nobody") used to play in a band called the Cherry-Faced Lurchers ... theme song, Do The Lurch. Entirely off the wall.

Given the thread, James once said to me (I was playing saxophone in a Mozambican band called The Greengrocers): "You're always trying to blow the world to pieces, aren't you." Audio fragment from a long-gone Jo'burg pub called Jameson's.

She'll be lucky if she gets two hours sleep a night, forget recreational excursions... but she'll appreciate the 'safe' part.

On the plane:
"Oh, the first Iraq war was fun. It was just a big fight in the desert and then we went home."

As you may imagine, there were a lot of other interesting bits of information in that conversation.

"Overheard" on a website discussing WWDC Leopard torrents and the lack thereof:

Not when Apple's ninjas come out. iNinjas have way more skill than regular ninjas, and can easily kill pirates. It's a new front on the Pirate vs. Ninja battle.



(Oh well, looks like I'll have to wait the 2-4 weeks the rest of the other poor shlubs who didn't have $1500 to shell out for a WWDC ticket will...)

- So how do you like it?

- Nice. They look good. Are you also.. do you have your pictures here too?

- yes

- ?

- the toilets.

- aah!

quote:

Originally posted by striv:
- So how do you like it?

- Nice. They look good. Are you also.. do you have your pictures here too?

- yes

- ?

- the toilets.

- aah!

Not the meat world.
The Restroom thread.

"Ooohh, you naughty bride of Christ!"

-Mr. Chatfaster, at supper this evening

In a related vein...

Overheard in NYC

Some of it's quite NSFW and DEFINITELY a time-hole.