We're gonna be stretchin' you out

[austin_dern]

The overhead on the e-mail warns it is ``confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify us immediately; you should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.'' Happily I was an intended recipient so I can share the tip-top secret letter: It's a notice about the Save Energy Campaign, replete with energy-saving tips you certainly don't want falling into unauthorized hands, like:

• ``Switch off the lights when you leave your room or office'' I leave my office lights off, and work by daylight, except when the afternoon thunderstorm is too dark (like today). That occurs about every other week.
• ``Use less disposable items e.g. polystyrene and paper cups and plates.'' They took out all the water fountains for the SARS crisis, so to get something to drink you get a plastic bottle or a metal can of tea, milk, or soda. In this context the cup is redundant at least.
• ``Use a half flush instead of a full flush in the toilet.'' I don't know how to adjust my flush. I feel so inadequate.
• ``Use recycled envelopes for all internal mail.'' I haven't seen a virgin envelope for internal mail since 1998; I don't know anyone who has, either. Maybe deans get new envelopes.

I noticed posters for a seminar on Using Humour, on how to develop and hone one's sense of humor and apply it to social and professional gatherings. At the exhortation ``Register now! $10'' I wondered, ``Are you joking?"' Actually, it was my mistake; I'd read the ``@10'' that was part of the date and time as if it were a charge to attend.

Trivia: Wesley Ivan Hurt, Swee'pea in Robert Altman's Popeye, grew eight teeth during filming. Source: The Popeye Story, Bridget Terry.

Currently Reading: Asimov on Chemistry, Isaac Asimov.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehheh!!!
That's like the message on some faxes... 'if you are not the intended recipient, do not read!'

how about, 'don't fax it to me and waste *my* paper in the first place!
*ruffle* ;9

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Singaporeans have this secrecy fetish. They even have the University President's Addresses put on a secured web server, when they already have the perfect protection against being read, namely, they're University President's Addresses.

[orv.livejournal.com]

I think my toilet must be set up for a half flush, seeing as I usually have to flush it twice.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'll grant you can set up a volume of flushing, but so far as I can tell with the Western-style toilets here the only choices are a full flush, or push the button just enough to lift the bob and create a little whiny runniness. Fractions just aren't there. (Many of them are also set up on infrared sensors, which generally work great.)

[mwmiller.livejournal.com]

Apparently half-flushes are an option for new-built toilets (http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/burema/gesein/abhose/abshose_058.cfm). How this applies to public toilets that don't have the option is left as an exercise for the reader.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm certainly not going to bring my own toilet along to install at the MRT station or wherever it is I feel I have to go. I don't have a big enough bag to hold it in.

[rcoony.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how that works either. Only thing I can think of is that those must be those toilets where you have to hold the handle down to get it to flush completely, but nobody ever does so a disgusting mass just builds up in there. I just figured those toilets were defective or something.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That might be, that they're new or that they're broken. Really, this is all just marking time until transporters are sophisticated enough to handle all this without any messy physical contact. Just ring up teleporter control and call, ``Number two to beam down.'' Much tidier.