What I Hated the Least Today 118/365: YouTube, Scorpions and Pigeons

Just don’t

I’m highly doubtful about the smartness of smart technology. However, for one, YouTube pleasantly surprised me when I entered a halfwit query and it returned the answer I was hoping for.

In one of the recent episodes of The Americans series, the male lead was strangling, with little pleasure, a random guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and asked the wrong questions. (He should have asked YouTube.) The whole business was being done to the accompaniment of a song which I liked and from which all that stuck on my mind was the line “got to run away”. It wasn’t even the refrain of the song.

Tentatively, I typed this in the YouTube search box and SmartTube replied that what I mean is the song “Tainted Love” by Scorpions. It turned out that it was precisely what I meant. This is rather different from my usual experience with Google, who thinks it’s smart but is not so much and whose Did you mean…? assumptions are routinely plainly wrong.

Here is the song:

I listened to some more music by the same band, which I of course knew, except I didn’t know that I knew, and got as far as to the song “White Dove”. This one is so famous that it received a Czech cover version (the same tune, but new lyrics). I actually listened to the original Scorpions lyrics for the first time now and was terrified. While the sentiments are surely commendable, their expression can’t get any more cheesy. It didn’t help that I listened while watching a home-made Polish cover video for the song.

If you want to be scared, here’s the video:

As I was being exposed to the above torture, I was meditating on the choice of dove as a peace symbol. I’m positive there is a history behind it, which I’m too lazy to Google (and Google would anyway think that I mean something else), but does everyone realise that a dove is basically a pigeon? Pigeon is an instant trigger for me because I’m plagued by these pests fiercely.

Gangs of pigeons hover around my terrace, driving me and the cat crazy. The cat grinds her teeth very intensely and very noisily at the sound or sight of a pigeon, sometimes waking me up in the night. At this pace, she’ll soon be totally toothless. Pigeons thrive here, as far as I can judge from the huge blobs of nasty and shockingly gluey substance they cover my terrace with. It sticks to the surface and seriously doesn’t wash off. (Please tips and tricks for pigeon poop removal. Thank you.)

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What I Hated the Least Today 117/365: Webcam Cover Up

What I Hated the Least Today 116/365: Not Suitable for Workplace

The horse is wearing a cleaning duster on its head

As I was putting my coat on and leaving work today, I left the office door gaping open because I couldn’t be bothered. Suddenly, a figure materialised in the door frame Star Trek transporter style. I first thought it would be the cleaner, however, I know the cleaner and it neither looked nor acted like her.

The cleaning woman in the building is a lovely warm lady with whom I exchange greetings and small talk across the length of the corridor because her cordiality carries across huge distances. She calls me, and probably everyone else, sweetheart. Alternately, she calls me teacher. I don’t have the heart to tell her that unless she wants to address me Ms, she should call me doctor. Whatever. (Not Doctor Whatever.)

The eerie figure on the doorstep was female and dressed as though she had arrived on bike. Considering the freezing temperatures, I considered that unlikely. She was wearing a curious combination of sports boots, biking leggings and fishnet shirt. By the way of greeting, she said she just popped in to see if our colleague Jimmy was in. Well, he was out, I replied the obvious. She proceeded to inquire how I was doing with my teaching.

Because the rule of the thumb at workplace is to never tell the truth, I retorted I was doing excellent, while still coping to place her. Among the obvious options, after the cleaner was excluded, was a travelling saleswoman of bike wear, a tricky Jehovah’s Witness or a trade union leader (probably because of the fishnet top, which I associate with someone keen on hooking and catching unsuspecting victims).

After several minutes of a painful conversation (all conversation is painful when I have to participate in it), it transpired that she was the department head. I did see her once before (I’m temping, hence I can’t be reasonably expected to know my boss) but she clearly didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. It could be because she spoke Slovak (and I can’t be reasonably expected to understand Slovak thirteen years after the split of Czechoslovakia).

I’m glad I didn’t point out to her that the bin needs to be taken out. If I had, she would have had her questionable attire to blame. Why do I bother wearing smart casual for work when the department head wears a biking fisherwoman style? For her own good, I hope she was in disguise for some undercover operation that I’m unaware of. Other than that, I can’t think of a sensible excuse why wear that for work. Maybe next time I see her, she’ll be wearing a cleaning duster in lieu of a hat, like the carousel horse in my picture.

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What I Hated the Least Today 115/365: What’s This Weather?

It looks like spring but it’s winter

If you live in the northern hemisphere, how was your summer? Pray tell me because I must have missed the season this year. The last thing I remember was a week of spring. I know it was spring because I was wearing skirts and colour tights. It escalated quickly to nylons. That’s where I imagine the summer came in, but I probably dozed off for a few months because it’s clearly winter now.

This morning, my phone Leni’s weather app (my phone is a Leni, my laptop is a Lena, you know, to avoid confusion) declared it was 4˚C, real feel -3˚C, wind 46 kmph. I decided to ignore Leni’s scaremongering and retired to have coffee at the terrace to probe the weather conditions on my own skin. I had to hold on to the railings pretty fast so as not to get blown away.

Admitting defeat and giving in to what Leni thinks is right for me (if she were my parent, she would be proud), I retrieved my winter coat and snow boots from their summer hideout and checked the probability of precipitation for today. It was 16%, which I willingly accepted and removed the umbrella from my bag. Whenever I’m off to teach, I invariably look like a street vendor with all the teaching materials I carry around. An umbrella more or less therefore makes a huge difference.

I jogged to the bus stop as I was late as I spent an excessive amount of time researching the weather. Hardly did I poke my nose out of the building when it started to drizzle. Yelling inwardly, My hair!! My haaaiiiirrr!!, I shielded my hair from the impact of raindrops. I did appreciate that it wasn’t hailing, which could have had an adverse effect not only on my hair but on the whole of my skull, possibly making it unwhole.

The following conclusions can be drawn from the above:

• Smartphones are dumb (which we already knew anyway).
• Weather forecasts are wrong (tell me something I don’t know).
• It always rains, unless when you have an umbrella.
• Winter is coming and the night is nigh (or whatever).

The following essential question remains:

• What the heck is this weather and what happened to summer?

And a bonus question:

• Why did I bother to do my hair in the morning (and where do I get a windshield to shield my hair from wind)?

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What I Hated the Least Today 114/365: Memory Boost

The brain pill

What’s the name of the German guy who hides all my stuff?

And:

I’m always forgetting to take my memory pills.

I was alarmingly distracted and disoriented in the last few weeks. It wasn’t just the usual, such as How old am I actually?, What’s the year again? and What am I even doing here?. There arose a concern that I might confuse the green and the red lights on the lights and get run over out of sheer stupidity.

As the last resort of the hopeless, mindless and memoryless, I visited a local drug dealer, Dr Ma(r)x, and inquired about brain pills. I was given (sold for cold hard cash because my dealer doesn’t accept meal tickets) a bottle of poison containing Ginkgo biloba. As I was leaving the dealer’s den, I noticed the loud and clear sticker on the door saying PULL, and I PUSHED accordingly. I may or may have not had to return for some Band-Aid and Ibuprofen.

I noticed my brain function boost already the first day that I took the food supplement. Placebo effect is still an effect, right? Since I’ve been on Ginkgo, I feel like I remember everything. I remember especially what I want to forget. Simultaneously, I feel like I forgot something important but I can’t remember what I forgot (because logic). I wonder if the memory pill works so that you forget that you should have remembered something in the first place. Ginkgo is such a mind-changing substance.