random short takes

[cellio]

A few nights ago, at something like 3am, we got a phone call from someone who blathered at our answering machine -- in some language we couldn't quite identify. (It had phonemes that sounded vaguely like Japanese, but I don't think it actually was Japanese.) Then the next day, sometime while we were at work, he called again, same deal. You'd think that the English message on the machine would provide a hint about languages comprehended here, but I guess not. I wonder who he was and what he wanted -- and whether he had any idea what time it was when he called the first time.

What was the deal with Enterprise this week? The two crew members off in a shuttle see wreckage from a ship that's not theirs and they think it's the Enterprise? Aren't there some distinctive markings involved? And weren't they motivated to investigate? I just plain did not get the initial premise of this episode... (I still don't know if this show is actually worth watching; it's had a few very good shows and many that didn't speak to me but weren't actively bad. This was possibly the most disappointing to date, though the stupid alien-pregnancy thing a while back is also a contender.)

As part of the grand shuffling of stuff in our house, we're investigating central A/C for the second floor. We figure enough will drift down to the first floor on its own, and a window unit in the living room can supplement when needed, and running ducts is invasive. (We have radiators.) If we just do the second floor, they can put the hardware in the attic and run only short bursts of ducts. It sounds like a cunning plan; I wonder if it will turn out to be a cunning operation when it's done.

You know, one of the errors in our property assessment this year is that they think we have central air, but that's not why we're doing this. :-)

Comments

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

In "Shuttlepod One"'s defence, it is firmly established that three things make it easy for the two to jump to the conclusion that the Enterprise is destroyed:

1) The wreckage on the asteroid included part of the Enterprise's hangar bay door, with the serial number of the starship partially painted on it.

2) The shuttlepod did not know of the Enterprise's rendezvous with the alien vessel that *did* crash on the asteroid.

3) The shuttlepod's sensor array was off-line, so they could not confirm that the wreckage was indeed the Enterprise or not and had to rely on visual evidence.

But yeah, they jumped to conclusions pretty fast.

Solution: Change your answering machine message

[prejlog.livejournal.com]

You've just got to change your answering machine message, so it goes something like this:

(very loudly and slowly) MONICA CELLIO IS NOT HOME. LEAVE A MESSAGE AT TEH SOUND OF THE BEEP IN EeeeeNGliiish. ONLY ENGLISH. YOU ESS EHY. OK?

:-)

I know someoen whose answerin g machine message used to have at least 6 languages on it. The scary thning is that I think he spoke them all, at least a bit. Me, I'm a typical merikin. I barely speak english.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

If you're really curious, you could get one of your more Japanese-comprehending friends to listen to it. :)

For a while at Claritech, someone was leaving me voicemail in Mandarin. I eventually got Xiao Jun to listen to it, and it turned out that someone had left messages for Hong Ming in my box because our numbers were only one apart or something.