Heino's a bastard

But a lovable one :-) If you don't know who Heino is you haven't been reading my blog for long; he's my best mate.

Today was Tuesday. We all know what tuesday[^] means. Uh huh, a long round of seemingly interminable meetings. Todays round was longer than usual; for some reason the company I work for gives us Presidents Day (yesterday) as a public holiday. I don't know why either. I don't think anyone there does anymore... Whatever. It meant that the round of timewasting meetings that should have occurred on Monday were postponed to Tuesday. I shouldn't complain; I lazed around the house and watched some movies.

My Tuesday is usually capped off by a teleconference between here, Dallas and The Philippines that starts at 5:15 PM. That time just happens to be when I'm supposed to knock off for the day but, even at the height of Edism[^] I'd attend even if I did end the meeting with the feeling that I'd rather gnaw my arm off at the shoulder than attend another.

This particular Tuesday was capped off with not just that teleconference but another one scheduled for even later. That was the one where we get to deal with a new group of people within the customer base; the ones who have no history of what we've done so far and who wonder why we don't automatically have recorded a datapoint that was never required before. Had to bite my tongue more than once during that conference.

A long and weary day. But getting home made up for all of it. For what did I find waiting for me but a package, from Heino, containing a Kath and Kim DVD[^]? Not just that, also a DVD that was distributed by The Melbourne Age[^]. Well ok, the second DVD was promotional material but not one whit the less appreciated for that. I've been a fan of Kath and Kim ever since they started; I was still living in Australia when the series premiered and Heino's sent me each DVD released since then. So I'm the last Australian to see each episode? I still get to see them :-)

It didn't stop there. There's also a DVD of the first colour episode of Homicide[^]. The Australian show.

Of course, if they came tonight, I haven't seen them yet; there lies before me a long and arduous process of conversion from PAL to NTSC so I can play them on my US DVD player and TV set. Strange. In Australia every model of TV sold these days can do NTSC but not vice versa in the US.

So why is Heino a bastard? He loves Christmas[^] and knows that I don't. So it was of course only natural that he'd include in the package a necktie featuring that fat bastard Santa Claus, complete with Ho ho ho and Seasons greetings! :-)

Thanks mate. Very very very much appreciated. And that's just the tie!