Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

Resolutions

imagesThe New Year is around the corner and like many people my head is full of good resolutions.
Not for me, for the people around me.
Me, I walk on water. There is no need to improve the product. It is the damn people around me who need help.

Jean-Paul Sartre said in a play “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (Hell is other people) and I agree. Without the “others” life would be a dream.

I am a Capricorn, and we are said to be “industrious, efficient and organized.”
I can vouch for that. I am a highly organized person and I don’t see eye to eye with scatterbrained subspecies.
When somebody talks to me, I want the facts… just the facts ma’am…

What, when, where? Or as my friends in the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) would say: Chto? Gdye? Kogda?

I don’t like to be kept in the dark. When I ask a question, I want a precise answer. I don’t fancy ambiguous situations. Ambiguity creates unease, and unease can easily turn into resentment and armed conflicts.

So first of all, what are you talking about? No meandering, no convoluted introduction. Tell me in a few words what’s troubling you.

When did this happen? Today, yesterday, three months ago?

Where? In your garden, on the freeway, in your bedroom?

If you can manage to tell me all of this in a few coherent sentences, you are going to be my BFF (Best Friend Forever, or at least for the next foreseeable future).
And I don’t ever tell me “I told you” when you pertinently know that you did not.
I am not senile yet.

So here is your resolution for 2014 (and beyond):

“I will tell no drivel and be truthful, accurate and timely when I communicate with my friends” (especially me).

By the way, you don’t need to follow this credo with Republicans, Tea Party zealots or religious freaks. When dealing with fanatics an exception to this rule is absolutely understandable.

You don’t have to thank me. Making you a better human being is my only reward.

Happy New Year to you all!

Alain

 

The Church of Apple

Even though I am a diehard atheist, I recently went to church.
The Church of Apple that is.

apple-logoEach time I need guidance, I visit one of its houses of worship. They are all brightly decorated and cheerily invite you to enter.
Unlike traditional churches, there are no statues of angels or saints inside and one does not feel intimidated by their surroundings.
There is just a simple icon at the door (the Apple) that many faithful kiss upon entering.

The church puts you subtly in a festive mood and you can almost feel the strings of your purse loosening up as your enter the temple.

When burdened by problems, I indeed go to the Church of Apple to seek solace and I am always greeted like an old friend, not like a sinner.
And I am never asked to confess or repent.
What is troubling you? they gently ask, and like a patient on a shrink’s couch I let it all out.

Numerous young clergymen are there, eager to commune with you. Since they are allowed to marry there is no shortage of them, and to my utter delight they speak a clear sounding English devoid of any Punjabi accent.

In all those churches there is an altar/desk populated by angels of mercy that Apple call “geniuses”.
All these angels have a direct line to God. They carry various electronic devices that allow them to talk directly to the Big Guy and you feel good knowing that he knows what’s troubling you.

Regardless of the time or the day, and in stark contrast with a Microsoft store located a block away the church is always teaming with people.

But it was not always like this.
For a long time I was fed at the breast of the Microsoft Holy Church.
I followed its scriptures (and updates) and was a faithful follower of its gospel.

This was a dark time for the Church of Apple and it was on the brink of bankruptcy.
It was the Second Coming of Steve Jobs that resurrected the church’s flagging fortune and made me convert to the Teachings of Jobs.

By all accounts, the late Steve Jobs was a mercurial bully who was feared and loathed by many; but he had a vision of what the Church of Apple should be and he ruthlessly went about implementing his doctrine. While he was at the helm he took no prisoners and walked on corpses.

Most of his employees were scared of him but they respected his leadership.
Sometimes it takes a captain Bligh to bring a listing ship to calmer waters and Steve Jobs did this.

Thanks to him, the Church of Apple is now “insanely” prosperous and is still attracting new devotees every single day.
I am one of them.

Pax vobiscum my friends!

Alain

 

A Christmas story – Part 3

On the eve of a highly publicized tournament, Bill Zeebut suggested that to secure a victory, Marcel ought to slightly “incapacitate” one of his main challengers.
Maybe trip him to bruise one of his legs or arrange a little car accident. Nothing serious mind you… just a little fender-bender to shake his confidence…

BelzebuthMarcel who desperately wanted to win this tournament toyed briefly with the idea. After all, he had not been asked to kill somebody, just to scare him a little.
It is done everyday… in business, in politics, in the affairs of the heart…
It is common practice… it’s no big deal…

But the idea still bothered him. He was glad to be successful, to be recognized as a good player, but it seemed to him that people were not as friendly as they used to be.
Everybody seemed tense and hostile.

Ultimately Marcel decided that he couldn’t harm anybody. He would just play his best and leave the rest to fate. He had after all become a good player and could win this event on his own.

The day of tournament, to the surprise of many he started to play very erratically. His boules went all over the field.
Desperate to score, he tried to mind-control his balls, but they seemed strangely unresponsive.
In spite of repeated urgent messages, they were now following a capricious course, often swerving away from the cochonnet.

He went into a cold sweat realizing that he was losing control of the situation.  Suddenly he recognized Bill Zeebut among the spectators. The man was smiling malevolently.
Marcel understood right away that Bill was punishing him for disregarding his instructions.

He tried to concentrate on the game and regain control of the situation but to no avail. And the worst he played, the broader Bill’s smile became.
Marcel grew very angry. As he was getting ready to shoot, he saw Bill Zeebut at the opposite end of the field, still grinning.
He threw his boule with the despair of a man firing his last javelin.

He saw the ball moving in slow motion toward its target, and beyond that he also caught sight of the smirk of his former benefactor.
Suddenly filled with a murderous rage, he summoned his waning powers and ordered his boule to strike that evil grinning bastard.
The boule seemed to hesitate…
“Hit him, hit him” moaned an exhausted Marcel.

The boule regained momentum and sped toward Bill Zeebut.
A few seconds before impact, Bill suddenly vaporized leaving in his place a small sulfurous cloud.
Strangely few people noticed his disappearance.

Marcel lost the tournament by a wide margin.
After this, he never heard from Bill Zeebut again.

He now wins very few games but he has regained the friendship of his peers and his wife has stopped sulking and is cooking for him again.
Even his kids are now (sparingly) talking to him.

He is looking forward to Christmas and can even joke about his losing streak.

Moral of the story:

“The problem with winning the rat race is (that after winning) you are still a rat.”
Lily Tomlin

Alain

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année a tous!