Etiquette [Part 3] - Just Help Out!

So, I love people. And messing with people. And socialising in general. You will see that in this post. With that, it's anecdote time.

I was walking home yesterday, probably at about 11:30 in the AM and I walked past an old woman trying to lug a big bag of what appeared to be cement up her garden path. She gave me a smile that was actually more like a grimace and I returned it. As I walked on, I thought: 'That's a pretty huge path...' and it was. It was probably 20 feet long and at a 55 or 60 degree angle. I instantly asked myself how the hell she was going to get up there with that bag and felt kind of bad. So I backtracked a little and offered her my help to carry it up the path. She accepted, thanked me and I got on with it. I lugged it up the path with an iota of the effort that it seemed to be taking her and she thanked me. We chatted for a second then I took off, waved goodbye and felt good about myself.

All I am saying in this small post is just help out. If you see somebody struggling with something, just help them out. They're not going to kill you (I hope...) and they'll probably thank you for it.

Don't You Just Love Education?

See the full gallery on Posterous

As a weekly thing, students at our college have a bulletein emailed to them which alerts them of any interesting things that are happening at the college in the week. Check out a couple of choice slides from the most recent one.

 

'Old' Music

14.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE

So, of late I have been listing to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code. You can go and Google that if you want to know what it’s all about but it’s basically just a radio show that’s streamed live and then podcasted. It’s open source and he takes songs that have been dropped in people’s dropboxes and plays those, which replaces the call-in feature of a normal radio show. I started listening to it because I had heard on No Agenda that he had started back up again and even though I didn’t listen to it before he stopped; I thought I’d give it a try.

I listened to the latest one which was his ‘tribute to the fallen’ episode. He played loads of music from folks that he missed (who were obviously dead) and because he worked in radio and TV for ages, he had stories about a bunch of them. I didn’t really know what to expect going in because I’d never heard the show before and in the opening, he mentioned that he was drunk. Good times!

I really liked it but not just because of the show itself; I loved the music that he played. Stuff like ‘I Can Dream About You’ by Dan Hartman and ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong. Music that I’d heard of but never actually heard myself. I made myself push on the couple of tracks that I didn’t like but the good thing is that, with it being a podcast, if you don’t like a song you just fast forward the show: bonus! Because of this, I found a bunch of amazing songs that I have added to my Easy Listening playlist and now listen to all of the time.

This just reinforces my philosophy of musical diversity. If you only listen to one genre then you are severely limiting yourself. If you like music instead of only liking rap or metal, you will find music that can suit any mood that you’re in. Maybe it’s just me who finds that music helps them to change their mood but I’m pretty sure that others feel the same way.  In that case, you can use jazz to relax and metal to amp yourself up or some combination thereof. Today’s message is basically ‘Enjoy All Music!’ which I think is simple enough to understand. Go and broaden your horizons, folks!

Scrivener Has A Name Generator!

Just a quick one and before you mention it - I know, I'm behind the times. Scrivener has sat unused on my PC for a while because I haven't been writing all that much of late. I've had revision and coursework to do so other things have kind of taken a back seat. But I decided; bugger it, I might as well write for a bit this morning. What did I find when I updated Scrivener? A name generator, that's what. This thing is fantastic! I no longer have to search obscure websites for names and such! I do usually make up my own but if I happen to need an Arabic-sounding female last name, Scrivener can help me! And it's pretty good as far as name generators go. I'm sure there's some super expensive software that can be bought that will do better but this one is just fine for me. Winner!