Fractionals

Overheard conversations make for such easy and good blog posts. It's great just letting other people do your work for you!

On a completely unrelated note, United By Fate hasn't risen in my estimation yet - but then I haven't been listening to it much and it isn't on the iPod so it's hardly surprising.

I can relate to that. Absolutely. The not knowing how to react that is.

Ouch Ben, ouch.

I hope they do rise in your estimation, but it was pretty immediate for me.

And lechach (have I mentioned how much fun it is to devise alternate pronounciations of your login name?), as a nice guy with nice guy friends (almost all of whom manage to avoid that whole not-being-able-to-get-a-date thing) it really does amaze me that its considered a strange phenomenon by soe (most?) women.

a friend (in real life) has managed to turn "lechach", or rather, just "chach" into "chooch". top that.

Generally the guys I know are very nice caring people on one level, but are messed up in ways that cause them to be jerks, much of the time, unintentionally. I'm too nice in my realizations of this, and attempt to either just deal, or attempt to inadvertently correct the problem, but then I usually just end up getting hurt to some degree anyways. Hence, pretty much every guy I've ever known has been a jerk on some level. So preparing for the worst and pre-judging other males just comes naturally. It's conditioning, Pavlonian-style.

I think my favourite right now might be "lech-ach".

As for guys; I don't know. Maybe I'm just lucky in my choice of friends, or there's something in the water in Canada, or they secretly all turn to jerks around girls when I'm not looking. But what you're describing sounds awfully strange to me.

On the other hand, I'm not saying you shouldn't be pre-judging my gender. My friends aside, guys kind of suck. (I've just never observed them on this kind of level)

mmm I'm pretty sure most guys I know act differently around girls than they do hanging out with other guys. I also think I know a lot of severely-independent and/or strange OCD-laden boys, too, which could be part of my problem also. Why can't anyone around this damn city just be normal?? Then again, maybe the water thing is a factor. Or maybe it's just a problem with me. There actually was a scare of radioactive material in the water supply of the place I grew up in back in the 80's... sooooo you never know.

See, back in the 80s I was reading enough comic books it was just possible I'd have been drinking that water, trying to get super powers.

Sorry, Ian, just re-read the first part of the comment I left above and realise it sounds very sarcastic - it wasn't meant to be, honest!

I'm fascinated by the snippets of conversation you overhear when passing people in the street and in bars. You end up constructing whole narratives about the people involved, just as you do when you overhear whole conversations in restaurants. Or is it just me?

A couple of friends got into the habit of saying, when passing people in the street, "... and then they shaved it, and it turns out it was an ostrich". Just to mess with passers-bys' heads.

I figured it wasn't, Ben, but couldn't resist the opportunity for some fun.

It's not just you, I do exactly the same thing. It can be pretty fun.

And your friends had pretty much the best idea ever - I may have to steal it or devise my own varient at some point.