22 December, 2004

Claire & Paul

Why do Paul and Claire find it so impossible to get along? This evening, Paul’s cooking: right now, Claire’s preparing some vegetables for him, and they’ve begun arguing. Paul wants Claire to do things a particular way, and Claire doesn’t feel that Paul is giving her enough information to justify doing it. So Paul gets defensive, which Claire doesn’t feel answers her question, so she goes on the offensive, hiding behind a veil of being reasonable while actually trying to score as many blows as possible. This sends Paul spiralling into an agressive position. “Why don’t you do it, then?” Paul shouts, visibly exasperated…

…it’s all fine: within an hour, they’re okay again, laughing and joking and smiling… but I always end up feeling like I’m in the crossfire. And somehow, I don’t seem to be all swings and roundabouts as fast as the combatants themselves.

Grr.

Tequila And Television

Claire went out on a work Christmas bash last night, so Paul and I decided to have a quiet night in with various retro TV shows (thanks UKNova) and drinks. All we had in in the latter category, however, was half a bottle of tequila, half a bottle of white rum, and a handful of other, less digestible things…

So, we thought, we’d wander out to Threshers, buy some more tequila and some orange juice and some grenadine, and have a tequila sunrise or ten. By the time we’d reached the bottom of both bottles of tequila we were feeling quite merry, but that didn’t stop us from continuing to mix drinks, substituting white rum instead. Drunk, Paul was heard to say, “Yeh… you can do a tequila sunrise with rum… they call it… <thinks> a tequila sunset…” Umm… okay.

Anyway, we watched Stressed Eric and Ban This Filth and a rental copy of Adaptation, one of my favourite films. JTA turned up with “Ruth, and were eventually followed by Ruth’s brothers, Owen and Robin, who sat and drank beer and watched bad TV with us.

Anyhow, Paul doesn’t seem so good this morning. =o)

The Story Of Apple’s Graphing Calculator

There’s a fascinating story behind Apple’s “Graphing Calculator” application. Here’s an extract:

In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed… …I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple’s doors, so I just kept showing up… …they asked, “Who do you report to? What group are you in? Why haven’t we seen this earlier?” I explained that I had been sneaking into the building and that the project didn’t exist. They laughed, until they realized I was serious.

Go read it. It’s a great story.