What I didn’t put in the box marked “What would you do to make {Company X} better?”:

“I would make the box where I get to type what I would do to make {Company X} better bigger”.

I was forwarded an email about a pay raise approval that has gone to my CEO, the blessed Larry. That in itself is scary enough (he’ll probably cover it by reaching down the back of his sofa). Fortunately my mail app made me feel a lot better: “Thunderbird thinks this email may be a scam.”

I’m a moderator on a Yahoo! Group! related to a software testing app. The Group! is files-only, meaning there’s no discussion, it’s just a place to keep handy documents, applets etc. that help when using the main application. Everyone who signs up has to read and agree to a very brief piece of text stating that they understand this – being friendly, it gives them directions to an actual discussion group. Nonetheless every week or two someone will post a question. For example, here’s one from this morning:

Does any body have the automation framework document of Rational Robo.. please send it to {email deleted}

Note that the product is actually Rational Robot so not only is he asking a question where he shouldn’t, he can’t even ask it properly. Here’s the response that one of the other mods

You’re such a brute. Impetuous, headstrong, not too smart. I like that.

Come join me at http://lyris.dundee.net/read/?forum=sqa-suite-users

Ask for Alice

To clarify, the guy who sent the response is not called Alice. Not publicly anyway.

My friend Yen got the following fortune cookie:

There comes a time in man’s life when a yen is only Japanese money

I got a memo at work yesterday about an article published in Germany’s leading Lebensmittelzeitung (grocery newspaper). Now I don’t know exactly how many Lebensmittelzeitungen there are in Germany, but that doesn’t matter, because this was published in the *leading* Lebensmittelzeitung. I know when I pick up a Lebensmittelzeitung, it’s always the leading Lebensmittelzeitung that I make time for; life’s too short to trifle with run-of-the-mill Lebensmittelzeitungen.