The end

Time to move the office. I haven’t been to the new place yet but I don’t anticipate a sign and letters. If they’re there, though, you can be sure I’ll take em over. Barring that, have marvelous lives and keep your eyes open for good advice, even if it’s not written in 9″ tall letters on a roadside sign.

Be a frood and know where your towel is

From the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is brimming with great words in a fantastic order.

I’m sorry I could make the letters neither larger nor friendlier, though do they do square up rather nicely, don’t you think? While this may seem like a piece of advice which can’t be followed by the people who need it most, it’s a good idea to keep it in mind while not panicking so you’ll be ready not to panic when a panic-inducing situation arises.

Sidenote: Someone came in this week asking if the sign guy still needs an apartment because she might have one available in a few months. She managed to be too soon and too late simultaneously. See, I knew I should have put up a sign that said “thanks for nothin, jerks” just so there was no confusion on my housing status afterward.

And one of them flies unlike a banana

Last week’s sign didn’t work. At all. So much for bartering unsolicited service for service. Also I’m down to my last S. It’s getting rough out here.

I saw this quote on Reddit and it seems to have stemmed from a conversation that someone had with someone else. All of the other sources I find when I look it up are more recent than that post.

Now that I’m looking at it, this one might sound deeper at first glance than it really is. I was thinking that it spoke to the finite nature of time, particularly in human terms, but really it just speaks to the unkillable nature of money. You can only spend it, after which point it may theoretically come back to you. Time, on the other hand, just leaves and never comes back. But our language already implies that so maybe this quite is trite and pretentious. Hard to say.

A brief interlude from inspiration

 

Maybe the sign has entertained or helped enough people that one of them in a position to help me will be inspired to do so. Cause I need an apartment and the pickings around here are quite slim. So if you’re merely an online viewer of this blog, I do apologize for the break in our somewhat regularly scheduled program. My lease runs up at the end of this month, though, so this sign shouldn’t be up for too long.

Definite Limits Too

 

This is a line from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (who I think looks a lot like Stephen Fry but that’s neither here nor there). The idea behind this quote has been in my head influencing my thoughts for a few months now and I can’t complain. We hear someone called by a label and throw all of the baggage, good or bad, associated with that label onto that person–they don’t get a chance to make their own impression first. Major bummer. Same goes with objects: “this here is a strike-on-box match” Well great, now I feel weird for using it to scratch my ear.

At the same time, from an engineering standpoint, to limit something by defining it can be great. Step 1 is always to define your problem. A whole mess of data can become so simple when you know what you need to do with it.

But sometimes it’s just wis

I didn’t even have to rearrange or shorten this one! It was originally said by M. Scott Peck (apparently). I’ve found this to be the case–you become unsure of something about which you’d previously been certain. This leads you on a chase for truth and in that pursuit, you learn not just the fact but how to approach facts.

Sorry it’s been a while since the last update but the snow hit the sign pretty hard (I lost an A!) and I’ve only just been able to dig it out. On a related note, I got to dive out from beneath a collapsing roof this morning!

Here’s where I landed, though the roof was a little bit lower before we propped it up with a stick.

This is to show that this roof is now blocking two entrances to the building. Marvelous.

Outside view! It’s difficult to determine how much snow is on the roof from this picture due to all of the snow that’s just around.

While my reflexes managed to pull me out before getting knocked on the head, I did catch a slight clip on my shoulder.

I was just trying to clear the ice and snow off before the roof collapsed from the weight! But there was a miscommunication between my coworker and me which led to the whole thing coming down while I was beneath it. Honestly, it was the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.

Ad Hominem

“It is not who is right but what is right that is of important.” -Thomas Huxley. The problem with my wording is that our language lacks a demand tense, so it seems more like I’m telling you that I forgot who was right; that’s not a great standpoint for an advice-giving sign.

This is actually an idea that I think on often. People choose sides and put each other into boxes based on labels and automatically assume that what the other side says is wrong and that nobody who lives in a different box can have a good idea. There’s nothing wrong with hanging out with like-minded people from time to time but if you ever sat down and wrote out your honest positions on a few issues, you might be surprised to see whose “side” you’re really on.

But is it to be? That is the question

William H Johnsen? Thomas B Smith? Chumbawumba? I’m not gonna go on record with who said it first but it’s simple enough that it’s easy to claim and it won’t make a lick of difference for the meaning. On to the meaning.

If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself. Be the change that you want to see. You just can’t find good help anymore. All these says and more summed up two letters at a time. It rhymes too, so you know it’s true.

Liquid hot, even

 

This one may not guide your life so much but it’s good to keep in mind. I mean, yeah, we’ve got a few dozen kilometers of rock beneath us at some points but after that, it just gets hotter and hotter until it’s liquid rocks, which is most of the core of this earth. We’re on a driverless spaceship, ladies and gentlemen, fueled from above by a strong flashlight and from below by a furnace. We make nice ovals around the sun but that sun is making ovals in the galaxy and that galaxy is moving in ways that I no longer remember. Again, maybe this won’t change how you go about your life this week but who knows, maybe it’ll shift your perspective a bit.

Oooh, my sign was in the local paper this week! How marvelous!

Quotebending

 

OK, so this is a line from a cartoon. But it was a great cartoon! Uncle Iroh was wonderfully written and we should all be so lucky as to have such kin watching over us.

It’s a good line. You can’t be ashamed if you don’t have pride. Somewhere between catch-22, paradox, and happy irony (Iroh-ny?). But is shame entirely bad? Can it not act as a guiding force when we’re being jerks? But then, why are we jerks if not for pride? The mind boggles.

A big hello to all of my new readers who arrived via Reddit. My viewership stats took an interesting turn this week. Guess I’ll have to keep my eye out for relevant threads. Or maybe y’all can do that work for me. And a shoutout to all those who offered to buy me new letters (I lost another S this week!), though I really can’t accept because vinyl letters are preposterously expensive. If you find a cheap source for 8-7/8″ tall letters, though, let me know.