Hazar for ClassicFM

I'm one of those lucky people who can have a spot of music on at my desk. It's one of the things that keeps the day moving along. I've been in workplaces where they tell you to turn it off or wear headphones or whatever, which really annoys me. I mean - if you can't listen to music while you're working, what can you do? Listen to the gentle tapping of keyboards all day? Hum?

Anyhoo, my office allows music so I'm happy. Now, for about 6 months I really tested the boundaries with a whole variety of music styles - acoustic, hard rock, Christian rock, electronic, Disney, classical and a whole bunch of stuff in between, and eventually I found that when I had classical music playing, no one asked me to turn it off. Fine with me.

So now I whack on a bit of ClassicFM in the morning, listen all through the day, and quite enjoy it. More often than not I recognise the piece playing, or can make an educated guess as to the composer (ahh, guess the composer - what a game!), and every hour I get some ABC news. Fantastic.

And I find that the music is both calming and keeps the day moving along. It seems like when everything is silent an hour can last for hours, but if you've got music playing, it can move by at just the right pace. That's all very subjective and fluffy, but I think we've all experienced what I mean.

And a bit of music gives something to talk about. I especially like it when one of my co-workers comes along and says that "this classical music is making me feel angry." Bizarre, and something to chat about. So hazar for classical music and the good people at ClassicFM. Makes a boring day just a little more enjoyable.

.e.

[Category: random_stuff]

Hazoo for Blogger Search

Well,

This category thing is frustrating the pants off me. Not literally - I still have pants on - but figuratively I have no pants.

It appears that Blogger Search only searches the atom RSS feed of your post. That is fine, however, if you edit a post, it doesn't seem to republish the atom feed for that post. So, my last post for example, I accidentally noted the category as "my_cd_catalog" and then published. It understandably didn't come up in my category search for my_cd_catalogue, so I edited the post and republished. But it still doesn't come up in the search because Blogger thinks the original post is the only one. Silly.

I don't know if this is a serious issue, it just frustrated me and causes me to issue a hazoo to Blogger Search.

...e
[Categories: random_stuff, my_cd_catalogue] Let's hope this works this time.

Hazar for CDs

Howdy all,

I've been playing around with categories for Blogspot recently, so I've been doing more template changing than posting. Sorry to all my fans out there, both of you. I still don't know if the categories thing is working, but I've spent long enough on it and I'll worry about it another day. Or I'll just wait until Blogger chooses me for their Beta program where I can use labels instead of categories. We'll see.

What I really wanted to talk about, though, and the whole reason for my desire for categories, is CDs and the coolness thereof. I have quite a few of the things, and I quite like them. Keep on buying more, actually, which is an expensive hobby, but cheaper than some others.

Now, many people ask me - "Edwin," they say, for that is my name, "what is your favourite style of music?" and I find that quite a difficult question to answer. I like lots of different styles of music, so I usually say "eclectic" when asked about my preference. I then explain what eclectic means and usually talk about my latest acquisitions as cases in point (incidentally - 'Black holes and revelations' by Muse and a self-titled album by Phil Wickham are the two newest). Much discussion usually follows.

So, I have decided to put my CD catalogue (or catalog for you pedants) on the blog for all to see, and I may well give a short review of quite a few of the CDs. This will take quite a while, and probably quite a few posts, hence the need for a category to gather all like-minded posts together. And who knows, I may even get to the end of my catalog one day. Or Jesus might return. Hazar for CDs - they are so useful.

.e.
[Category: my_cd_catalogue]

Hazar for Winter Training

Checkout this story on SydneyAnglicans.net - it talks about St Andy's, my Christian family in Wahroonga, and the "Winter Training" program we've been doing over the past 6 weeks. It's pretty cool to see a story about something I was involved in - it always is (check your local microfiche for the local newspaper story about Clean up Australia Day 1988 in which I featured prominently) - but I can't help thinking that these 6 weeks of seminars is not really that spectacular compared to the remaining 40 or so weeks of the year spent in regular Bible study groups. It was cool to come together to learn about something nice and theological like the doctrine of the Trinity, but why is that more newsworthy than the hundreds of bible study groups meeting faithfully every week of the year to learn about Biblical theology?

Argh - I realise now the silliness of my argument - meeting in a big church group is similar in some aspects to small groups, and different in others. They are both of benefit, in differing ways, and it is cool that St Andys, and other churches, get involved in both.

Which brings me back to my original idea - hazar for Winter Training, and bring on more in the future!

.e.t.

random_stuff

Hazar for random stuff

Hey,

Click on "View my complete profile" on the left and you will see my interests. Well, in the old days they would have purely been interests, these days people find "keywords" that easily define them. Anyhoo, I've listed a few interests, and, for wont of a better term, I finished up with "random stuff." Click on random stuff and you will see that a small number people think that random stuff is indeed, a very valid interest.

Now, first time I looked at this it amused me that people always seemed to end their list of pithy keywords with "random stuff" and I thought that it might be a universal rule that "random stuff" will only ever be the final item in people's lists of interests. It then dawned on me that Blogger counts "random stuff" and "random stuff." differently, and only people with a penchant for correct punctuation will appear in the "random stuff." list, whereas the others appear in this list. So much for Edwin's Law of Universal Random Stuff Finality, although I still think there is space for an article on the subject on Wikipedia.

But all of this begs the question, what is "random stuff"? For mine, "random stuff" refers to a sense of humour that is heavily dependent on doing or saying the thing those in your company are least likely to expect. For example, rather than finishing emails with "hope you have a nice day" you instead write "thank you, kind sir, for your assistance with the suits. I hope the wife gets over her spot of gout." That is "random stuff", and quite humourous too.

For others, "random stuff" may refer to reading news items like this and then talking about it loudly at pubs. The best response to that, of course, is the oft-heard phrase "why the hell would you want to know that?" Ahh, delightfully random.

In any event, "random stuff" is what keeps us giggling throughout the day, or at least keeps a quizzical look in our eyes, and I for one want to issue a huge Hazar for Random Stuff!

~Cedric~
You didn't expect that, did you?

Hazar for Weird beards

Kristarella has inspired me to start blogging again, and I thought I'd start by taking part in her self-portrait competition. I think I'll be the winner, since I'm the only participant, which makes me happy. But I'm mostly happy about being able to show off the weirdest beard I created whilst trying to look like a pirate on a recent camp. Evidently, pirates spent hours tending to their beards, and I was glad to carry on that tradition.

Anyway, who knows what I'll be chucking up hazars or hazoos about in the future. For the meantime, hazar for weird, piratic beards.

.e