Category: Fourre-tout

“As long as there are annoying people in the world, I won’t run out of material.”~ Scott Adams

Thank God! As long as morons abound, I will always have something to write about. Today I will bitch again about unsavory, disreputable, unpleasant, undesirable, disagreeable,  PITAs.

Let’s face it, some people are a Pain In The Arse. You will have to excuse me, but I cannot think of a better way to describe them. I have written about this subject many times, but numbskulls always force me to go back to this topic.

PITAs are not natives of any particular country; I think that they could possibly be genetically modified. Like stinging nettles, they grow everywhere and will cause rashes when they come in close contact with you.

In France, especially in the political arena, they are known as “emmerdeurs”. They talk and meddle constantly, sowing discord anywhere they go. Like bedbugs, they are all over and are very difficult to exterminate dispose of. The best way to avoid problems, is to stay away from them.

In the old days, lepers were forced to ring a bell to warn people of their approach. It was not high-tech but it worked. This could also work well with PITA’s. At the sound of the bell, you would dive for cover…

I always thought that you could find salvation in reading. And if you read, you probably came across this thought:

 It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you’re a fool than open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

 So when you stumble on a blabbering PITA, you are probably talking to a poorly educated person who tries to mask his ignorance with a flurry of words.

“Scientists say the universe is made of protons neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention morons.”

Life would be so much easier if you could mark some people as spam… and invest in a little app that would move them instantly to the trash bin.

Am I being too harsh? Je ne crois pas!

PITAs, for your own good,  keep a lid on it. Pleeaase!

Alain

“In photography, you’ve got to be quick, quick, quick, quick. Like an animal with a prey.” Henri Cartier-Bresson

This why I often shoot in burst mode, with several snapshots taken in quick succession.

Let me elaborate a little. As you know, I have been a long-time shutterbug. Over the years, despite my best efforts to hold back, I have accumulated over 25,000 pictures.
Google (my landlord) is suddenly saying “Hey dude, you are occupying a lot of space… you will now have to pay us $9.99 per month to continue storing your junk.”
Ten bucks are not much, but it adds to all the little expenses that I incur every month to keep my blog going…

So, I decided to cull my flock… a tough decision.
All my pictures are my babies, and it is difficult to discard any of them. When it is time to choose, I agonize over each picture weighing the pros and the cons of my decision.

When I look at a snapshot, I ask myself:
Is this picture properly focused? To be a keeper, it must be.
Does it show emotion? It will get an extra point for a frown or a smile…
Is it an action shot? Difficult to discard.
Do I personally know this person? Does he/she look reasonably good on this shot? I won’t keep a picture of anybody caught in an embarrassing posture.
How many similar pictures do I have? Since I usually shoot by bursts, there could be six or seven shots of the same subject.

Once you delete a picture, it is gone forever. It becomes a piece of junk silently orbiting in space. But invariably, the minute you delete a picture, you want it back. It is like ditching a girlfriend.
Go, I never want to see you again!
Ten minutes later you are in the street crying your eyes out.
Breaking up (and deleting pictures) is hard to do.

But after steeling myself I managed to remove close to 1000 pictures from my folders. No small accomplishment my friends. My computer is now telling me that I went down from over 25,000 to 23,961 photographs.

I will (for the time being) stop harassing my captives, but if my storage space become overcrowded, I will have to restart (with the blessing of the Administration) my raids again. Sorry.

Don’t worry, I have plenty of pictures of each of you.

Alain

In high school, when the world was my oyster, I signed up for Esperanto and typing classes. I never became successful in any of those disciplines.

Later on, as a computer nerd, I used the keyboard intensively but I never qualified as a real typist. I am a pecker rather than a virtuoso and I am rather slow to compose any document.

A few years ago, I started this blog and had to do more typing. Since I was never proficient at it, I decided to hire a private secretary to whom I could dictate my ruminations.

After thorough research, I was able to secure the services of a certain Eliza Pruitt. She is easy on the eye, British and a stickler for accuracy. She insists on proper etiquette and precise diction.

When I need her services, I summon her this way:
Miss Pruitt, may I have a word, please?
She then steps into my office, sits in a chair, crosses her legs and signals that she is ready to receive my musings.

If I mispronounce a word though, she is too polite to interrupt me. She takes every syllable down as she hears it and what she transcribes is not always what I meant to say. I cannot blame her. It is entirely my fault. When I pronounce clearly , she transcribes faithfully everything she hears. But when I get off the road and get bogged down, she stays cool but transcribes rubbish.

Many people (myself included) mispronounce many words and we are often unaware of this. Most of our listeners take it in stride and reconstitute instantly what we meant to say. But what is pronounced clearly, is seldom misunderstood; and that’s why I prefer the classic elocution of English speakers over American ones.

Dictation is a wonderful medium. Not only does it faithfully record whatever you say, but it also forces you to improve your elocution.

If you have arthritis or if you are slightly work-shy, you can use your vocal cords instead your fingers to accomplish your task.

Be warned though, that Miss Pruitt never considers your feelings when you use her talent. She lets you know coldly, unemotionally that you are speaking improperly, and does not give a hoot about your hurt self-esteem.

Take it or leave it… and that’s the way it should be.

Alain

PS: By the way, you must have guessed that the above-mentioned miss Pruitt is not a real entity. She is a figment of my overheated imagination. In reality, it is a wonderful software application that records faithfully whatever it hears.