Card Sharp
Earlier this year I managed to commit all sorts of social and business faux pas by going over to Japan without a stack of business cards. Over there, everyone you meet - from business people to the concierge at the hotel - hands you their business card and expects the same in return. I was blithely unaware of this and subsequently appeared even ruder and more antisocial than usual through my perceived unwillingness to be contacted. I’m due back in Japan in December, and this time I’m determined to be prepared. I do actually have several business cards (one for my [...]

My Life In The Underclass
After 18 months of development, my current project is finally being implemented at the first of ten scheduled sites.  This being a Warehouse Management project, the site is - obviously - a warehouse. Which means that most of our users are forklift drivers, plus a handful of ‘office-based’ supervisors, and a few gatekeepers. My training team (three including myself) has been here conducting training for the month, and this week the developers arrived in force, deposing us from our training room, and generally riding roughshod over everything we’ve had organized since we got here.  Despite having managed to navigate our way around the warehouse without [...]

The Decemberists, Riviera Theater, Chicago
Given that I had to back out of the last two gigs in Houston that I had tickets for (Gomez, and Green Day) because I was sent to Chicago on gig-day, I was super-bummed to learn that my current loves, The Decemberists, were playing Houston when I was, yet again, in Chicago. But as I was scheduled to be up here for five weeks, I decided I may as well see if there was anyone interesting playing in Chi-Town (correctly pronounced shit-town, Colin Meloy was pleased to inform us) whilst I was here.  And joy of joys, I discovered that The Decemberists’ tour [...]

978-1-849680-16-5
For U.S. bands, the traditional way they would know they had ‘made it’ was when they were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone (witness Cover of the Rolling Stone, by Dr. Hook - yes, I’m embarrassed I know it, too…). For UK bands, it was when they performed on the now defunct Top Of The Pops. For me, I always thought that the pinnacle of achievement was getting a book published. Or, more specifically, getting a real book with an actual ISBN published. Many years ago, I worked on the Torchum Never Stops books, but these were self-published [by [...]

A-courting we will go
And I thought that getting my car fixed would be the end of it…. As I mentioned in a previous post, the guy who hit my car was given a citation by the police. This is basically a ticket, and he has the choice of paying a fine, or (because this is the free world) he can contest it. Obviously, because his father is an Attorney, he decided to contest it. Generally, if you’re guilty and don’t have a chance of getting away with it, you contest it, because if the arresting officer or any of the witnesses don’t [...]