wendy house

What-ever your gender or sexual preferences looking* at someone the wrong way*  should not be  justification for job dismissal.

The Guardian reports a case where multinational bank HSBC sacked an employee for looking at another employee the ‘wrong way’*.

I’m planning to wear reflective sunglasses  when dealing with wbankers.  

*described using the emotive term ‘ogling’. Given as  evidence of sexual harassment

Summary:   highly recommended because Jamie is a very talented all round entertainer.   Thoroughly enjoyable.   The music was more fun than album reproduction precision,   my favourite trade-off!

They played at the beautiful old  Moore Theatre in Seattle.   Jen and Roth managed to find me in the open seating of ‘the Gods’ despite the dim lighting and my cunning disguise of Ray Ban wrap-around reflective tinted sunglasses!

The back-up dude, Matt Wertz,  was a loner from Tennessee with an acoustic guitar.   He  perked us up with passionate,   humerous,     ‘folksy’ rock songs and a singalong.   He was a good  compliment and lead-in to  the main band.  

Some things seemed very consistent with this being the first night of a tour,   for example:

• Sound system failure – at one point Jamie talked to us for about 5 minutes while the technical crew attempted to fix the set-up.   Failure of technical preparation,   very professional Jamie for pulling-off an obvious improvisation with charm.    
• Missing band member due to unanticipated US Visa processing delays.
• Jamie’s patter not fully tailored to US audiences.   He used irony.      When his comment didn’t get a laugh he highlighted this and the normally very responses audience were just silent.   I doubt he’ll do that again!    

Before one  intimate song Jamie  suggested people snuggle up to the person next to them if they were

thinking of “getting Jiggy with it”

and were”good to go“

I’m definitiely getting acclimated.   I didn’t realise these were Americanisms until Jamie pointed them out.

The real fun came from the musical vibrancy and improvisation.     Jamie is very much a performer as well as a musician.   He played the piano with his hands,   buttocks and feet!   Wonderful dramatic effect.    Had me chortling away!     He kicked-over his stool,   he picked it up again, he  climbed on the Piano and jumped off again.   He played standing-up,   he played sitting down.   He played the piano-frame…       It was FUN.  

The songs?   You could hear the lyrics!   They were beautiful.   At the end of one song the band rolled into “Notting Hill Carnival” style music that was amazingly like the real thing.   It was all good clean fun.   I loved it.

Seating in ‘the gods’ was only $15 (UK about 7 pounds!).   It was very cramped and uncomfortable with an extremely poor veiw.   That seem’s about right for $15!

I did  a Cinderella around 11pm….

LooSea was parked on the street about 8 blocks away opposite the Seattle Greyhound bus station in a seedy part of town.   People were sleeping rough on the sidewalks on this cold spring night.   They put my luxurious evening in perspective.

A temporary solution to Tinkerbell’s dodgy keyboard ($19.99) is a small USB keyboard.   Matrix check’s it out over a cup of tea:

Before purchasing the keyboard I interviewed the Fry’s sales-staff about purchasing a replacement laptop.   This is what he told me:

• The new Microsoft operating system is due out in this spring (any time now)
• The new operating system will only really work on ’64 bit’ (what’s that?) computers so it wont be available on laptops until they standardly produce 64 bit laptops (at least another year away).
• Advised me to buy an XP pro Fugitsu laptop ($1,599 before tax).

I checked in  with some people who work at Microsoft.   I think they said  that ‘Windows Vista’ (next Microsoft Operating System) will work on ’32 bit’ machines (errr Laptops?) and will not be in stores until after August.     Hmmmmm….    

I’ve decided to try to hold-out until September before I try and replace Tinkerbell.   The money for a temporary external keyboard seemed worth it so that I can see if their new operating system is in stores on ’32 bit’ Laptops by then….

At home:

Tinkerbell’s d and t keys have joined her spaced-out space-bar in  unpredictable land.   Aaaaarghhh.   My choices are

• RSI  (free)
• replace fitted keyboard ($30 + my skrewdriver labour)
• add wireless keyboard ($30 no screwdriver labour)
• use work laptop  (free)
• buy pretty new laptop (expensive,   I am worth it )
• Ask Anne to get whizzy with her keyboard-fixing skills on Tinkerbell

At work:

him: “Wendy its an emergency I need a laptop 15 minutes ago, can I borrow yours?”

Wendy: “Urrrgghhh,   yes, give me 10 minutes to log-off.   This old crate is S L O W” (moves to use a Desktop.   Desktop?  -   big screen, big keyboard,   huge heavy towery thing, not so easy to run with as a laptop)

15 minutes later,   sweat pouring from his brow:

Him:   “I can’t log-in”

Wendy: “Oh yeah,   I fogot to mention the shift-keys don’t work.   Fatally wounded by some Tea.   Yeah.   On both sides.   Just the shift keys.   Tea has amazing shift-key-targeting ability.  Earl Gray you know.   Don’t trust it near your Laptop.   Better to drink it.  Use Caps-Lock instead of shift.   Tea doesn’t target caps-lock”   (I realized several utterances ago that he was too flustered to listen to my ramblings.    I do enjoy torturing the locals, and you,  with trivia.

Him: “that worked”  (demonstrates running with  laptop)    

Wendy “remember to boot it  about 15 minutes  before you need to use it,    it’s S-L-O-W” (shouted down the corridor)

I have spent at least 350 days per year in the USA    across the last  6 years.   I am legally in the USA but I’m not legally recognised as  ’resident’ here. Huh?

A US bank gave me a mortgage on a residential property 6 years ago.   I have ‘lived’ 6 years in that property as my primary residence.   I am legally in the USA but I’m not ‘resident’ here. Excuse me?

I pay taxes and social secuirty  to the US government, no other government.   I am legally in the USA but I’m not ‘resident’ here. I’m not entitled to any Social Security benefits for my 6 years of payments. I will never be entitled to  anything for those 6 years payments to a US government infrastructure.

I   have 2 work-permits and one ‘entry visa’   (Greencard Advanced Parole).     I’m not really ‘resident’ here.   Am I?

I am easily confused.

I  am confused.

I am

I

.