Marty and I are giving our first joint talk which could well turn out to be a disaster. At the time of submission this sounded like a great idea. Marty knows that I pay more attention to detail than him so the talk should have structure and I know that Marty should be able to keep the audience entertained and if all else fails talk for an hour about something.

When I mentioned YAPC this morning he said, “What are we planning on talking about again?”. (See, I pay more attention to detail: I know the talk’s about CPAN). This surprised me as I have already sent him a talk outline and can remember having discussions about the content of this talk. He laughed and said, “Well I’m not sure I actually read the outline; I just thought you wanted me to format it” (yes he actually said the semi-colon). And in relation to the conversations he said, “Was that when I was watching that episode of South Park…”.

The Call of the Wild, Jack London

Alaskan tundra –
a dog finds his inner wolf.
White snow turns yellow.

[One Hundred Great Books in Haiku, David Bader]

Tonight my sister-in-law told me that she would be taking part in the attempt to beat the world record for the most people taking part in the same pole dancing routine. She asked me if I wanted to take part and it does sound like an interesting way to keep fit. But I’m not sure that I’m flexible enough to try pole dancing.

Recently I’ve been reading about handwriting and how much is given away about personality and emotional health in one A4 page of writing. I’ve been aware for a long time that everything I say and every movement I make can be communicating things I may not want other people to know. But I must admit I’ve never before thought about the colour of ink I habitually use to write with. I am aware that I made a deliberate decision to use black ink. It didn’t seem like a big decision though as really the only ink colours I could choose from were blue, black, red and green.

Writers who habitually and from choice use black ink are not so much revealing an emotional state as an attitude towards communication.

Such individuals are concerned with precision, exactitude and in the clear understanding of all aspects of the message they are attempting to convey. They have a strong desire to make themselves clear and to avoid confusion. Frequently the use of such ink is associated with people in professions which demand a high degree of precision, such as accountancy, engineering, mathematics and so on. [The Hidden Language of Your Handwriting, Greene & Lewis]