Everybody's working for the weekend

The university's following the Civil Service decision to go to a five-day work week, cutting out half-day Saturdays. So, every department in the university has been e-mailing its new office schedules to every faculty member. I didn't know there were so many departments. You'd think they could have sent a generic notice and asked departments not following that schedule to speak up.

The five-day week is part of the efforts to Lighten Up, akin to the skydiving festival or the ``Miss Tiffany, Singapore'' beauty contest (open to transsexuals and transvestites) last weekend. 28-year-old student Jesse Rogers won, and will represent the nation in the ``Miss Tiffany's Universe'' contest in Bangkok.

In International I'm Not Touching You league play, Taiwan Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun (Mark) says he will not apologize for calling Singapore ``a country the size of a booger.'' He said he was not criticizing Singapore's policies regarding China and Taiwan with the comment, and added the country is still ``Taiwain's most trustworthy friend in Asia.'' Singapore's government has not asked for an apology; the United States has declined comment on the booger issue. So far as I'm aware this is the first international diplomatic discussion of boogers.

Lightheartedness aside, here's a communications tower breaking the warp barrier.

Trivia: England's Shop Hours Act of 1886 set a workweek of 74 hours maximum. It was poorly enforced before 1912. Source: The History Today Companion to British History, Juliet Gardiner and Neil Wenborn.

Currently Reading: Chulo: A Year Among The Coatimundis, Bil Gilbert.