Pavlov's Determinist

I carry a support phone for my company. It usually rings at inconvenient times, like at a restaurant or at 3AM in the morning. It has a distinctive ring, I think it's the default one on that phone.

The people on the other end are looking for solutions to their problems, and are usually facing a telco company that could be losing money or don't have a phone service for their two to twelve million subscribers. There is a bit of pressure involved and calls from a CEO or head of some department are pretty common.

On a walk to work the other day, I went by a bus stop and someone else's phone went off and they had the same ring.

Late nights, slogging through source code, looking at customer configurations, being tired to the point of hallucination all came back to me and ruined my morning.

Pavlov knew what he was doing. It doesn't mean we have to like it, but it probably means that we respond this way to everything. Think about the last time you were in a bad mood and see if there is anything that triggered it.

My cats

I talk about my cats in my blog, but haven't posted many pictures.

Here is a picture of Fred (Princess Winnifred)



And here's a picture of Gordon (that's Flash Gordon to people who don't know him):

Una's a golfing natural

I took Una out to the driving range in Petone now that she's got her nifty new golf clubs.

Because of her yoga, there are so many things I don't have to bother with teaching, like relaxing and good posture. She has stunning posture both before, during and after her swing, and a wicked follow-through.

It's hard for me to pick up on little adjustments because she's a lefty, but there's not much to adjust really.

Speaking of adjustments, I may have to adjust my estimate of when she'll start beating me on the golf course.

She's keen for another trip to the driving range too.

Cartoon Entry in Cartoon challenge

I created a cartoon challenge on the kiwiwriters page.

Here is my entry.



copyright Travis Cottreau, 2007

Dialog font: "Steel City Comic" by John Greyson.

I won a contest

Paperback writer, a blog by Lynn Viehl often holds give aways and various contests, often having her own, signed books as prizes.

One she had recently was called "Last Call" giveaway. It's a good read about how she has been trying to get rid of a large number of professionally printed bookmarks (big mistake) since she started selling novels and she's down to the last one. That, along with the novel of the winner's choice are the prize.

Here's the winning announcement... me, me, me... hahah...

As I said in an earlier musing, I attract books. This still seems to be the case. :-)

Una has golf clubs

Can you believe this? I actually convinced Una to get golf clubs. She suggested it herself actually. This was after following me out for a few rounds just to walk the course. Now, she's decided to ruin her walk by golfing too - but I will never complain.

Now - how long before she starts beating me? I give it 6 months.

Bookstores without a Science-Fiction section

Whenever I go into a bookstore, I almost always end up in the sci-fi/fantasy section. When I don't find a sci-fi section, I end up wondering why.

Is it that they don't think that sci-fi qualifies to be in their bookstore? isn't literature? Something else?

Bookstores like this are usually filled with what other bookstores would put in the "Literature" section, either classic or contemporary.

It makes me think that the bookstore is stuffy, and ruins my browse, even if there are other books that I'm interested in reading.

I hit two bookstores like this during my weekend in Auckland... fortunately, there is always a Borders and a Dymocks there for me to browse.