Herbie Hancock was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this week for their section called Not My Job. The jazz musician had to answer questions regarding the biggest business blunders of 2007. He didn't get any of the questions correct but there was this awesome little bit after the quiz... (This isn't an actual transcript, it's just the jist...)
CK: Well, Herbie had to get some [answers] right for Kirstein... but you kind of struck out.
HH: Yeah, I didn't get any.
PS: It's ok. Herbie is a jazz genius. He didn't choose the right answers, he improvised the wrong ones! It's alright, he just bent the facts, a little.
HH: That's right! I have a bigger vision for these questions.
Or maybe it was just funny to me...
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
*clip* *clip*clip* *clip*
oh dear sweet whatever is holy....
i hate the dude next door in my office building. he insists on having every phone call on speaker and the walls are *#^*&@*_ thin. Tonight, in addition to having lengthy conversations that I can't seem to drown out (no matter how loud i turn up the volume), HE'S CUTTING HIS NAILS IN THE OFFICE. that noise creeps me out. i seriously need some headphones here...
i hate the dude next door in my office building. he insists on having every phone call on speaker and the walls are *#^*&@*_ thin. Tonight, in addition to having lengthy conversations that I can't seem to drown out (no matter how loud i turn up the volume), HE'S CUTTING HIS NAILS IN THE OFFICE. that noise creeps me out. i seriously need some headphones here...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The road to hell is paved with dead birds.
A moral conundrum this morning...
On my walk to the train station I spotted an injured bird on the sidewalk. It was a tiny bird, the same color as the asphalt, on a very busy sidewalk. I stopped and evaluated the situation:
A- The bird needed to get off the sidewalk so it wouldn't get kicked by an unaware pedestrian.
B- I would need some sort of way to move the bird since I get scared touching birds with my bare hands (not a disease thing, I just freak out when they begin to flutter in your hands).
C- It's bitterly cold out here.
At first I began to use a cigarette carton I found on the sidewalk and tried to get the bird onto the flattened box. It didn't flutter its wings, it didn't try hop away. I then realized it was much more hurt than I originally thought. A bird who can't (at the very least) hop isn't in a good spot. Its tiny breast began to palpate faster and I stopped. I wasn't helping it I was only scaring it. So I modified my plan to get the bird to the side of the sidewalk and somehow obviously mark it so that it could recover and pedestrians wouldn't step on it. I had a wad of unused tissues in my coat pocket so I wrapped the little guy in the tissues and very carefully moved it to the side of the sidewalk, against the side of a building. The tissues would protect it from the wind as well as clearly mark it to passers-by. As I began to go on my way I looked back at it in its little tissue cocoon. That little guy wasn't going to make it.
I saw some bushes about 15 feet ahead. I walked back, delicately picked up the little bird/tissue ball and walked it over the to bushes. I set it down under the bush furthest away from the road. As the tissue ball unwound I saw that it had shat all over the tissues underneath it. Its little chest was vibrating in fear. As I stood up, I saw its tiny glass eyes close in a way that didn't feel normal. I'm not proud of it but I turned and walked away. I didn't want to know if I had killed it or not.
So here's the moral dilemma; I just wanted to help the bird but by moving it I think I scared it to death. Did I help? Its death was swifter and warmer than it might have otherwise been but... I killed it. Do good intentions count for anything?
On my walk to the train station I spotted an injured bird on the sidewalk. It was a tiny bird, the same color as the asphalt, on a very busy sidewalk. I stopped and evaluated the situation:
A- The bird needed to get off the sidewalk so it wouldn't get kicked by an unaware pedestrian.
B- I would need some sort of way to move the bird since I get scared touching birds with my bare hands (not a disease thing, I just freak out when they begin to flutter in your hands).
C- It's bitterly cold out here.
At first I began to use a cigarette carton I found on the sidewalk and tried to get the bird onto the flattened box. It didn't flutter its wings, it didn't try hop away. I then realized it was much more hurt than I originally thought. A bird who can't (at the very least) hop isn't in a good spot. Its tiny breast began to palpate faster and I stopped. I wasn't helping it I was only scaring it. So I modified my plan to get the bird to the side of the sidewalk and somehow obviously mark it so that it could recover and pedestrians wouldn't step on it. I had a wad of unused tissues in my coat pocket so I wrapped the little guy in the tissues and very carefully moved it to the side of the sidewalk, against the side of a building. The tissues would protect it from the wind as well as clearly mark it to passers-by. As I began to go on my way I looked back at it in its little tissue cocoon. That little guy wasn't going to make it.
I saw some bushes about 15 feet ahead. I walked back, delicately picked up the little bird/tissue ball and walked it over the to bushes. I set it down under the bush furthest away from the road. As the tissue ball unwound I saw that it had shat all over the tissues underneath it. Its little chest was vibrating in fear. As I stood up, I saw its tiny glass eyes close in a way that didn't feel normal. I'm not proud of it but I turned and walked away. I didn't want to know if I had killed it or not.
So here's the moral dilemma; I just wanted to help the bird but by moving it I think I scared it to death. Did I help? Its death was swifter and warmer than it might have otherwise been but... I killed it. Do good intentions count for anything?
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