Or is that six new features?

[active_apathy]

Disclaimer: Just before writing this entry, I accidentally spilled tea. This tea emergency resulted in little damage apart from a very soggy skirt. As a result, this entry was written skirtless. You have been warned.

(I expect there's no significant difference from normal. I just wanted a way of saying this that was more fun than "Oops, spilt tea on myself.")

Let's start with another warning: there may be other NaNofilk pending, as a result of this thread. Some of the lines from the OMGSEKRIT original song are being a shade tricky, but I expect they'll be made to cooperate any moment now.

And from here, into the entry text!

I've been spending copious amounts of time shopping today, which translates roughly as 'staring longingly at things I want to buy, and laughing mockingly at things I don't ever want to buy'. And, really, the rest of that story's about as fun as watching John W Howard knit 'stay the course' socks for El Presidente Shrub while whistling God Save the Queen and making a plasticine model of the White House using only his toes.

The highlight, if you can call it that, was that I saw the trailer for Casino Royale on one of the magical picture boxes that punctuate the architecture of the modern shopping centre. While I understand that my judgement on this matter might be a little off, seeing as how I'm Really Not Interested in the menfolk, my pet theory is that he may just be the ugliest person ever to play James Bond. Yes, they started with Marko Ramius, and then moved on to Simon Templar and Timothy Dalton (who doesn't have a recognisable enough role in anything for me to use another character name). Fifth (George Lazenby was too boring to appear in the timeline) was Remington Steele, who brought a bit of prettiness back to the role. And now, Daniel (I-haven't-seen-his-other-films) Craig gets hired to make me wonder just how it is that this James Bond character is supposed to get lots of sex. Maybe I'm missing something. Discuss.

Next on my list is a random incident: a woman watered potted flowers in a fountain, then emptied much of the water into the gutter. I'm puzzled as to why, but it was moderately amusing to watch.

And then, Westfield has brought out an amusing Xmas poster. I'm sure it's supposed to look Appallingly Cute™, but... it doesn't. There's this sad-eyed stripling with a poorly handwritten sign saying 'SANTA'. Again, I'm sure it's supposed to look Appallingly Cute™, but the effect I get is a kid answering a question like "Could you please tell the court who it was that, brandishing a sawn-off shotgun, divested you of your lollipop?"

Campus ad: Male student requires "acomodation".
Apparently, he's seeking to move in with quiet, friendly folk who are non-smokers and non-spellers - but it's ok if they leave their punctuation out all over the place. Instead of pandering to Telegraph readers and testing immigrants on their English, we should maybe spend a little bit on teaching it in schools first.

And then, my trip home. I recount this snippet verbatim, from someone who took exception to needing a student card to get about on a student fare:

What's up with that fucking driver's fucking attitude? I'm going to fucking write down all the fucking names of the drivers with fucking attitude problems. There's a real fucking problem on the buses. I'm going to fucking make them fucking fix these fucking attitude problems.

An attitude problem on buses? It's interesting you should mention that. Can you maybe think of an example? No? Oh well.
And could you maybe acomodate a fellow rocket scientist? I'm sure you could compare notes. Or if you're not big on notes, you could probably find something else to compare.

Lastly, my Gmail is loudly heralding its five new features. And in a way I feel to be reasonably true to form for when I actually post about Google stuff...

Dear Monolithically Lovable Empire of Search Google,

It's with some interest that I read through the release on your new features for Gmail. Having looked about on top of its page looking for a reply button, I've instead chosen this as a medium for comment. So!

One - the new reply button: I like the idea of this one. Having the reply button at the top of the message helps save me having to read through all that pesky reply text, and helps protect against the temptation to keep going and read the rest of the thread.

On the other hand, it also offers the means to quickly do a lot of things, like fix unreadable messages or report phishing. Dear spammers, no phishing trip for you, you lose, hahaha, kthxbye.

Two - the new message notification thingy: Completely useful. Now instead of having to curse faster typists in a whole other message on the list, I can rant and curse about them from the privacy of my own desk.

Happily, now, instead of writing a lengthy reply to the salient points of the previous respondent, I can instead build in my responses to the next message, and the reply to it, and the reply to it, which - on some threads - will help make sure I have quite a comprehensive response, if I could only send it between incoming messages...

Three - forward all: I was having a long and in-depth discussion about this earlier; it's nice to know that with a single click, I could send all three hundred and eighty-two responses to a waiting inbox.

Actually, this one could be problematic depending on how it works. Forwarding an entire thread (which might have hundreds of individual messages) to a POP email account might result in either Very Big email, or a Very Upset spam filter.

Four - chat to offline people: It's the Sixth Sense for the modern day: "I see offline people". No longer do you need to hire an expensive medium to talk to those who've passed on from the online world into that other realm of mundane reality - instead, you can just leave eleventy billion messages like "r u back on yet?" to infuriate them upon their return.

Or if you're a political figure looking to transact an illicit affair by way of Gmail, you could use it to leave completely traceable messages to junior staff.

Lastly, Five - Gmail on your phone: Hooray! Just when you thought email could already find you anywhere in the world, there's a revolution in pesky connectivity - an inbox that can live in your pocket. No longer can you seek refuge from important email by having other stuff to do: not at all, for it can follow you everywhere, if your phone does Interwebbernets.

On the other hand, it can be useful to know just how many comments you're getting on LiveJournal while you're on a bus trying to ignore a bilious rant on driver attitude and, by so doing, have a nap. Even if you can't do things like pick an icon and reply to them.

All in all, dearest Google, it's a feature set which looks like it might be - at times - quite useful. And, at other times, potentially hazardous. Now I just need to find someone with POP email to forward a whole thread to... bwahaha.

Yours with a context-sensitive adverb,
active_apathy

And that's it for now. As always, um, stuff. Yeah. I think I need some kind of better ending for my posts. Discuss.

Comments

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

I think you missed Pierce Brosnan in your list of Bonds.

Also, Timothy Dalton = Prince Baron ("Flash! Ah-ah!")

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Nay; Remington Steele is listed.

However did I miss that he was in Flash Gordon? Oh well; I'll let it stand as is.

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

So you did. Misread the bit about George Lazenby and got confused.

I'm generally more likely to forget that he played Bond, having seen Flash about 100 times more than any of his Bond appearances.

Also, on him being ugly; apparently the Bond they were aiming for was "thug in a suit" (according to some TV show about Casino Royale that I wasn't really paying attention to), rather than the slightly more sophisticated Bond we're used to.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

So we've gone from "No, Mr Bond; I expect you to die!" to "No, Mr Bond; I expect you to settle it out in the carpark with a baseball bat!"?

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

Something like that :)

I think it's supposed to be a prequel, with Bond only just having become a 00 agent, so he hasn't really had the time to develop his famous charm.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it. This is Bond's first mission ever.
Supposedly his first kill too. And he bungles it.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I seeeee. Casino Retcon, then.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Isn't the entire franchise pure retcon?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Male student requires "acomodation"

At least he's consistent in his lack of understanding of the language.

As I've commented many times, hopefully not to you more than once, I always shied away from ROOMATE WANTED ads, since I was always afraid of what might have caused them to eat the previous one.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. I suppose so.

Maybe he's basing it on hotel prices generally being for two - so the number of 'c's and 'm's in accommodation depends on how many you're looking to accommodate. And now I can almost picture an email being sent off to ask about 'accccccccccccommmmmmmmmmmmodation' for a $SPORTING team.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

Gmail's been available on cell phones for quite some time. It just wasn't all that browser friendly, that's all.

I like the new message notification thingy, too. I didn't know it was implemented until I got one and said, "Ooooh! Shiny!"



Also: yay skirtless!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It's tricky to make that work for the browser in a phone, because it's a tiny, tiiiiny piece of software.

The message notification thingy will be very useful, methinks.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

When we went to go see Pulse, I tried checking my email from my phone while waiting for the movie to start... didn't work out so well. I was disappointed... something about cookies, but I couldn't figure out how to change the settings. Bah. But it works for others!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I finally figured out that this "message notification" thingy is different from the "gmail notifier" thingy I already had.

Note use of past tense, since it hasn't worked with this upgraded gmail all day:(

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It is. It'll tell you if someone else sends email in the same thread while you're writing your own reply. In other words, it's to help keep three or four folk sending the same message at the same time and looking like some kind of Axis of Idjits.

And... that's odd. My notifier's still working just fine.

[fireflyfailure.livejournal.com]

if he is seeking 'acomodation', perhaps one could offer him a bead and a rum. [yes, that's stretching it faaaaaaaar, but...poetic license? :P]


...i kinda like daniel craig...um...he's a good actor and all...don't hate me?

[shaysdays.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with this post, but long-distance warm fuzzies from me for your excellent explanation on big and little words and character limits back there.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That's ok. I'm not about to try to do the job for you, but I think it's sometimes useful to sell the reasons a bit.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

I doubt that the one swearing abotu the student card would be literate enough to write down all the drivers' names anyway.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Good, good point. Plus I don't think their names are on display anywhere, either.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

James Bond gets automatic Charisma +5. Also, gmail ads remain the highlight of my day. "There is still no cure for the common birthday." Hoorah!

[leila82.livejournal.com]

The new James Bond guy - isn't really very attractive. I was hoping they'd pick Clive Owens, personally.

Also, I love Google. I think they might own my soul, more than LJ.

I do hope that male student is 'acomodated' soon, whatever it means.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

They probably do. Mmmm, google.