There’s a lot of great comments that present themselves from readers on this site. Allegedly in the innanet industry this is what the marketing types call user-generated content or some such. Whatever, but it shows what highly intelligent people you all are.
My old school mate KTK remarks that obscure names are an advantage for being found in Google (and I suppose being able to obtain your own name.com like I have). The Age this week noted a private investigator who advises the opposite: “Change your name to something generic” if you don’t want to be found.
Susze comments on people who work in shops saying “You right there?” When I worked in a shop, I’d vary between “Can I help you?” and “Are you right there?” to stave off boredom from saying the same thing repeatedly, and depending on how much I felt like serving the person (including whether or not they looked like they knew what they were doing, finding what they wanted).
Philip was one of those who commented on a better way to strike matches to avoid them breaking: pushing the head along the box. I’ve been doing this now, and it seems to work in most cases. I previously held the match at almost a 90 degree angle to the box.
If you’re wondering the posts that have attracted the most comments are: April Fools’ Day 2004, When I bought the house, the rapidfire quizzical What kind of person are you? and The bathtub of mystery. (If you run WordPress, here’s how to see this for your blog.)
4 replies on “Followups”
if you don’t want to be found?
that’s such a pre-post-privacy era thing to say!
and to come from a private investigator? what a duffer. hypocrisy much?
i posted recently on my blog about the fact that we live in the age of the self-documentary, and i still agree with myseln, even after all this time. i think that most ppl posting on the interweb want to have an identifiable presence, want to be ‘found’.
of course, that’s a different kind of ‘found’ to the one that involves having a private eye hammering on your bedroom door at four am, taking compromising flash photographs of a visiting indonesian trade minister in your bed and your bank account in its nightie…
Oh the comments on working in a shop; lining up for a coffee at the caf, behind a huge long line of students, the caf worker calls out “Anyone waiting?!?!” Me and the tradey boys behind me all burst out laughing, as the line was practically out the door.
Maybe she should have changed her call out that morning to “who’s NEXT waiting” or the like. :)
Rae, having worked a couple of shitty jobs in my youth I can well understand the woman who responded inappropriately to the long queue. The thing is that after you’ve said the same thing a thousand times your brain turns off and you repeat the same sentence even if it is no longer appropriate (Om mani padme hum). I recall one fairly pleasant mindless job where I smiled so much to the customers that my mouth really hurt at the end of the day. Or, to give another example, when I got married a long line of well-wishers formed after the ceremony. By the time the thirtieth person said “Congratulations” I was saying “Thank you” automatically, which was fine until someone said “Hello.”
“Will you leave me alone?! I’m sick and tired of being hounded by salesmen in shops! I’m browsing, all right?! Browsing! At the end of it I might buy something, I might not – but you will not influence me one iota! Not one jot! Now I’ve finished with you, you may go!!”