Random Raves 54: You will succeed. It is inevitable.

I gave my first speech at work in a long time today at our director's retirement party.

Other staff asked me to speak on their behalf.. for various reasons.. There was a long running gag that the director would do.. At almost every work event or function he would at some point say "And now warpus will say a couple words".. or some other coworker.. but he loved picking on me for this! Then obviously we'd all laugh and move on and no speech was ever said.

Last year at a goodbye party for another senior leader from our unit, the director called me up for a speech.. and people likely thought "oh I know this gag". But nope, I went up to the front with like 20 pages in my hand, and started leafing through them. Comedic timing, etc. Then the director announced that it was all a gag.

So now we played a gag on him.. Sort of.. by having me say an actual speech. I made my speech about the fact that I will not be doing a speech, because over the years I was always stopped from being able to say my speech.. "and he always played it off as a joke, but we both know that he was actually afraid that my legendary public speaking skills would outshine his. And that is something I can't do to {name}"

Then I went on about how I can't stand there and talk about his many accomplishments or how good of a leader he was yadda yadda, you get the jist of it, up until the end, when I said something like: "And I will not say ANY of that.. but I will say one thing.. something written for me for this occasion by an AI Bot:" {insert genuinely heartfelt paragraph about the director's legacy and retirement}.. Then instructed everyone to join me and the AI bot in giving the director a round of applause.

I'm glad this speech thing is finally over.. and so is the workweek.. until early January.. I hate public speaking. I want to get better at it, so I'm glad I did this, but it feels amazing that I no longer have to think about it

I got mad props for how good the speech was, but honestly.. I feel the way I wrote it gets at least a 9/10.. but my execution was more like a 7/10.. It was alright, but I can improve. Either way though, a lot of people liked it, it was well received by everyone incl. the director, and it was nice to actually say something about his legacy, as he's been my boss for a long time now.. It was also great to finally wrap up that whole gag like that.
 
About the only times that I'm comfortable with public speaking is if I'm giving a talk on astronomy, or back in my SCA days when I was liaising with the media or others for our PR stuff. I suppose I could natter on about penguins, as well.
 
Happy winter solstice everyone! :grouphug:

I spent today calculating integrals, throwing darts, helping an elderly lady get her computer working.

I felt needed and mood is good. I will also help with computers tomorrow, going to my client's house.
 
A black and white drawing of a man wearing an apron and waving one hand while standing behind a counter and speaking to a man who is ordering.
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More or Less​

Dear Diary:
It was 1994, and I was living in the East Village. On my way home one day, I stopped at the Second Avenue Deli.
After waiting in line for a few minutes, I stepped up to the counter.
“One pound of chopped liver, please,” I said.

The counterman waved his hands dismissively as if batting the idea away.
“No, no, no,” he said. “That’s not the way to do it here. What I’ll do is I’ll make you a chopped liver sandwich, and that way you get more than a pound of chopped liver.”
“Otherwise,” he added, “I gotta charge you more for less. Makes no sense!”
“Oh, thank you,” I said. “But really, I just want a pound, and I’d like to get it in a plastic container.”
Before I finished speaking, though, he had unspooled a long sheet of white deli paper and loaded a thick slice of marble rye with a softball-size dollop of creamy, fresh chopped liver redolent of sweet garlic and raw onion.
When my request finally registered with him, he stopped and fixed me with a long, disappointed stare.
“Look,” he said, “what’s the problem? I make you a nice chopped liver sandwich, you take the sandwich home, you unwrap the sandwich, you throw away the bread! What’s the problem?”

I conceded that it sounded like an excellent course of action.
— John Berlind
 
I'm going to see David Cross do standup! With a friend who is also a big fan

The very next day at the exact same venue I am going to see Thievery Corporation, one of my all-time favourite acts. Going alone cause I don't really know anyone else who appreciates their brilliance as much as I do (and lives here).

See spoiler tag for live Thievery Corp performance - The Richest Man in Babylon, one of the songs I loved back in the day that still moves me today. Link should fastforward to right before the track kicks in

Spoiler :

I saw these guys @ Lollapalooza 2009 and it was amazing, but this is a much smaller venue and a lot more intimate and I can't wait. Standing/dancing room ticket, that's all I need
 
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I'm going to see David Cross do standup! With a friend who is also a big fan

The very next day at the exact same venue I am going to see Thievery Corporation, one of my all-time favourite acts. Going alone cause I don't really know anyone else who appreciates their brilliance as much as I do (and lives here).

See spoiler tag for live Thievery Corp performance - The Richest Man in Babylon, one of the songs I loved back in the day that still moves me today. Link should fastforward to right before the track kicks in

Spoiler :

I saw these guys @ Lollapalooza 2009 and it was amazing, but this is a much smaller venue and a lot more intimate and I can't wait. Standing/dancing room ticket, that's all I need
I wore out The Mirror Conspiracy (2000) back in the day. I have to think a smaller, indoor venue is the way to see them live.

 
Love Lebanese Blonde! Such a great track. I hope they play that @ the show I'm going too
I discovered Thievery Corporation and a bunch of others by way of the Serve Chilled compilations from Ministry of Sound's label, Hed Kandi. There was a 5-story Tower Records I used to spend a lot of time in, and they had a little section for club music with a lot of UK imports. The first Serve Chilled had Thievery Corporation, Nightmares on Wax, Groove Armada, Morcheeba, The Herbaliser, Afterlife, Bebel Gilberto, and a bunch of others. They put "The Glass and Bead Game" from Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi on that one, so I guess that was probably the first Thievery Corporation song I ever heard.

61e5paPoFUL._SX425_.jpg


 
Over half a dozen fanfic authors I follow have uploaded new chapters today. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do.
 
I've been more detached from the Christmas tradition this year than ever, and it feels great.

It's felt like forced joy for a while for me. The revelers think their joy is a good thing, but they don't respect anybody who says yeah, this is lame, it's making my mood worse, please stop. They'll straight up attack you. Idk why. Are they hurt to know they're making your life worse, and attack you so as to shift blame away from themselves? Is it "you don't like it, your fault then!!!!!"?

In any case, I've got up no tree, no lights, haven't heard Christmas music non-stop at work, minimally heard or seen any Christmas movies or ads, done no celebrating of any note nor even entertained the possibility, and everything is better, not worse.

Minimized that exposure and **** yeah baby, it's humming, high powered.
 
They won't get to enjoy Christmas forever. The number of times they get it, in a good place, relatively small. Just like everyone falls in love for the first time once, even if it's the most common story around.

I cannot wait for today to be over. I cannot wait for the year to be over. The greatest joy I get from the realization is that I will never have to live either of them again. But it doesn't make *****ing on my son's, one, 12 year old's Christmas any less lame for doing it. So I'm letting the strep throat do it for us.
 
Yeah, I get to go into it from a much more selfish position than most. I don't have to worry about my kids experience. I don't have kids. I visited my dad, only close family I have, call'er a day, and I'm done with it.

Just quietly declined wearing stupid hats at work and this baby went smooooooth.
 
I discovered Thievery Corporation and a bunch of others by way of the Serve Chilled compilations from Ministry of Sound's label, Hed Kandi. There was a 5-story Tower Records I used to spend a lot of time in, and they had a little section for club music with a lot of UK imports. The first Serve Chilled had Thievery Corporation, Nightmares on Wax, Groove Armada, Morcheeba, The Herbaliser, Afterlife, Bebel Gilberto, and a bunch of others. They put "The Glass and Bead Game" from Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi on that one, so I guess that was probably the first Thievery Corporation song I ever heard.

61e5paPoFUL._SX425_.jpg


Some girl around 2004 I met on a raw food forum shared a bunch of MP3s of TC with me, I recently rediscovered them, love it
 
A black-and-white drawing of a person walking past another person sitting on a bench.
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Benched​

Dear Diary:
I was in the habit of taking walks in Carl Schurz Park on early summer mornings, when the sun cast a lovely orange glow over the quiet East River esplanade.
My walk was identical every day. What also became routine was seeing the same older man sitting on the same bench each morning. He held a flat tweed cap in his hands, always gazing wistfully out onto the water.
One morning, I decided to talk to him.
“Hello,” I said, approaching the bench where he was sitting.
He looked up.
“How do you do?” he said.
“I don’t mean to bother you, but I see you here every day,” I said.
“Is that right?” he said.
“And if you don’t mind me asking, I was curious why you sat on this same bench?”
He turned away with a deep sigh.
“My wife and I used to sit on this bench together for 51 years,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, feeling badly. “I’m sorry.”
“And for some bizarre reason she likes to sit over there now,” he said, gesturing toward a woman 20 feet to the left of us.
— Samuel Willinger
 
Happy New Year!
 
Rave, 2024 is gone...
 
My wife and I celebrated the passing year with cannolis:

1735710706064.jpeg
 
My wife and I celebrated the passing year with cannolis:

View attachment 713915
Looks delicious.

I've been awake too long because at first I read that as a different word... :hmm:


Anyway, Chinese food, Timbits, watched the Pacific time zone countdown from Vancouver on CBC Gem, there were illegal fireworks here in my zone, and with luck my first accomplishment of the new year will be to get a load of laundry done.
 
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