Clan Fire Place

A rather friendly and laid back colleague went on holiday with wife and two toddlers to a place in North Wales. Let us call him Charlie Evans. So Charlie went on holiday exactly last year with his family to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf in Anglesey.

Naturally, I was a bit confounded to find out. So I sat down across a coffee table sipping tea and spoke to him. Here is some bits of what we talked.


How do you say the name, Charlie?
I cannot pronounce it, I can only do the beginning and the end.


Is there a shorter name for it?
Yes, can’t remember it though. Something like llanfairgogogoch.


Why did you go there and what did you do there?
Visit a friend who had a Holiday caravan just down the road.


Do you have any pictures from there?
I have a picture of the train station sign on my phone. There is not a lot there. Just a train station, a few shops and a take away.Anglesey has some nice places though, if you are thinking of going.

They also have a website for tourism. As a semi-technical person, jolly good that domain names can take up to 63 letters! This is how to pronounce the name. Some thing like Clan fire...

Tectonic Shift

I work with the IT people for the Travel Desk of a well known publishing house and I heard this conversation between two developers at lunch:

developer 1: Where is Salzburg ?
developer 2: Austria, why do you ask?
developer 1: It may not be there anymore!
developer 2: And why not ?
developer 1: Because I added it as a child class of Germany

Requirements - when I feel drowsy at work

As a Tester (user role)

I would like a Testbed (functionality)

So that I can sleep on it (business value)

A nice thought

Everyone can be an artist. Some of us paint with words, others with musical notes. Some do it with equations while others use bricks and mortar. And some even do it with paints. No matter what medium we use, if we've poured our soul into it, the result is bound to be a masterpiece

Do you know who Samuel P. Huntington is ?

"West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
---------- Samuel P. Huntington

How To Treat Gods

My machine was hotdogged yesterday. This means that someone has tampered with the settings of the computer. But thankfully for me, there was only an anonymous 'menacing' message in notepad that read

"BEWARE...I WILL NOT BE SO CHARITABLE THE NEXT TIME.........

PS: THANK SAPTO AND TREAT HIM LIKE GOD FROM NOW ON....HE SAVED UR MACHINE....."

It did not take me very long to find out who the author of such give-away lines was. So I pinged him just to quickly check how to treat a god.

gitanjaliv: Had a question for you ..
keviv12 : bolo
gitanjaliv : How does one treat a god ? stand him on a stone and lock the door ?
keviv12 : Nahin...to use tamil...give him abhiskham.... First water
gitanjaliv : oh yeah ..I love that ! Stand him up and pour cold water on his head
keviv12 : Then milk....preferably diluted
gitanjaliv : yoohoo !!
keviv12 : And possibly honey.....somewhere near an anthill
gitanjaliv : Sapto is not exactly pleased ...
keviv12 : Thats how we treat gods.... in temples....is it not ???
gitanjaliv: Cool. Now that things are clear.
gitanjaliv: Yes yes, I wholly agree.
keviv12 : I dont know about what you do at home....
gitanjaliv : Stand him on a stone and lock the door.
keviv12 : But i bow and pray in front of god everyday and light lamps and incense sticks....and sing songs in his/her praise....You might have to compose one for Sapto god....
gitanjaliv: Ah I can sing for Sapto ..that is easy.
keviv12 : Easy for you...what about him??
gitanjaliv: But he usually squirms when I sing
keviv12 : see what i mean?!!
gitanjaliv :ya !
keviv12 : over??
gitanjaliv: Yes yes.

The Pen is Mighty

Sparky is a visiting PM from Thoughtworks US. It was good to see him after a long time. What stood out about him literally was this black reynolds pen behind his ear.

Me: What's with this pen ? Some kind of status symbol ?
Sparky: No it just means I am busy