24 March 2005
Space Needle, Goose . . .
Terry Pettus Park
My uncle, Terry Pettus, has a park named after him in Seattle, not far from the houseboat on Lake Union where he lived most of his life. It's a very unprepossessing little place, just a few park benches, some terraces, and a pier. A nice couple was having coffee at one of the benches, with a goose attempting to beg pastry from them (to no avail). They were curious about me snapping photos of the place; I told them about Terry. They told me I looked like an independent filmmaker, which in a way, I suppose is true; maybe they thought I was location-scouting.
21 March 2005
Me, in Seattle
I'll be in Seattle this weekend, attending Norwescon (my first Science Fiction convention since, oh, dinosaurs ruled the earth). If you are a friend of Blowfish, and would like to say hi... come up and say hi!
13 December 2004
Photo
Tradescant tomb, west side, Museum of Garden History (formerly St Mary-at-Lambeth), London, December 2004.
28 July 2004
How to Ruin a Perfectly Nice Trip
So, here I am in Portland, Oregon at a very nice conference. Portland is in Multnomah County, one of the few places in the country where, at least for a while, gays could legally marry.
And, of course, Oregon is also home to idiots (like everywhere else in the country) that seem to be utterly unable to cope with the idea of gays marrying, so they have qualified a petition for the November ballot to prevent that.
All of these stupid anti-same-sex-marriage laws are pointless and antiquated as sodomy laws. I cannot believe that in 2004 we’re continuing to argue over this. I would like you morons to cut it out; you’re embarrassing me in front of my European friends.
And, in addition, the chief private competitor of Oregon’s very reasonably-priced state worker’s compensation insurance company, SAIF, are pushing a petition to put it out of business. I guess that they decided the California model of worker’s compensation would be a good idea. That’s an interesting business strategy: I wonder if I could get a law passed to put my competitors out of business.
I was thinking that Oregon was looking like an attractive place to do businesses. I guess, after November, I’ll know for sure.
2 May 2004
The “Ueberpimp”
Jamais sent me a reference to this wonderful article from A Fistful of Euros, which definitely takes the best blog title this week award. In summary, it appears that the German government may be in the situation of having to offer vocational training to prostitutes. But, really, read the article.
14 April 2004
Death will not release you
In celebration of US Tax Day tomorrow, Inland Revenue (the UK's equivalent of the IRS) sent me my UK tax return form. What fun!
Last I counted, I had about 4 pence of UK income from my dinky little savings account, but once a UK taxpayer, always a UK taxpayer, I guess. In case you think that the two-page US Form 1040 is intimidating, the UK equivalent runs a full 14 pages of extremely colorful line items (plus a 16 page tax calculation guide, if you do not want to take Inland Revenue up on their kind offer to calculate your tax bill for you). And, to make matters more interesting, the UK tax year runs from the first Monday in April, rather than from January 1st.
The UK used to have one of the simplest tax regimes in the world: PAYE, Pay As You Earn. You had tax withheld from your paycheck. At the end of the year, you . . . did nothing, as the amount you owed was exactly the amount that was withheld. Of course, they had to go and muck that all up.
On the other hand, the Pounds Sterling symbol is muchcooler than the dollar symbol.
Yes, they are precisely like