Wikispeaks! (again)

Dear all,

It is time for all of you to pat yourself on the back ... as at 14:04 on Sunday 22nd January 2012, the number of hits on this blog reached 1128. This means that your nonsense-blogger Gracie is happy, and when Gracie is happy, she blogs, and as a result the sarcasm deficit in the world is restored :).

A lot of things happened in our country this week. Many more important things happened in the world. I do not have the sensibility to deal with the Costa Concordia disaster, since I would end up making jokes about it, and I try to limit myself when people have actually died. All I can say is that unfortunately we have confirmed the existence of Schettinos, but we also rediscovered with pleasure the possibilities of Del Falcos. So there is hope, at least and may the "Vada a Bordo C***o!!!" remind all those in positions of power that they are there to act in the one-in-a-million-times when things go wrong, and that in such a circumstance they are NOT allowed to fail.

Anywaaaaay! The one thing that happened this week that left me staring helplessly at the monitor, with ten fingers poised in mid-air in disbelief is the 24 shut down of Wikipedia. Now ... before the the wave of "Bif F***in Deal!" reaches my living room, allow me to give you some background on the life of yours truly, so that you may try to comprehend the hours of mental and social vacuum that this action caused me.

So ... dear people who lived through the early nineties with already fairly developed cognitive skills, do you remember that set of children's encyclopedia called "Childcraft" that used to be sold by door-to-door salesmen? For those who don't remember, here is a refresher course on, where else, Wikipedia. Now, you must know, that I actually read all the set from cover to cover between the ages of 7 to 12. I also read the Parent's Volume, which explains to our mums and dads how to broach the subject of puberty and the birds and the bees conundrum. In fact, the changes in my body were no surprise, the birds and the bees though ... remembering how I got to know about that is still a trauma, 21 years later! Anyhooooo, so I read these books and therefore turned out to be the girl at catechism class who told her teacher that no, it can't be that our God is automatically the only God since there was a boy in a Bushman tribe in the Sahara desert who believed that his ancestors were deities. I was also the much loved daughter who explained what a "Kibbutz" was during Sunday lunch, to the unconcealed disdain of my older brother, and to a set of worried parents who wondered, "will this girl ever manage to have a social life"? Well, if there are any young parents reading this, do take note of the signals ... a child with an inquisitive mind ends up blogging about nonsense in his or her adult life, and will enjoy every minute of it. So you either learn to live it, or burn all books at home :).

Well, this Childcraft reading nerdylocks grew up to be me. And by me, I mean a person who in this past week resorted to using Wikipedia to search:

- for a picture of Howard Wolowitz to explain to a colleague why he looks like him (colleague is still not impressed)
- the life of J. Edgar Hoover after watching a trailer of "J.Edgar" at the cinema
- how many horses perished in World War I after watching War Horse,
- what was the Spanish Influenza and how did it kill people after sneezing 4 times in an hour,
- the Ides of March because a friend was watching the film with the same title
- Bonnie and Clyde ... actually I can't remember why I searched for that. Cannot quite be for the heck of it now can it?

The investment in a Blackberry also means that I can never leave an issue unresolved during a conversation, and the phrase "heq mhux we google it??" has become a standard, also followed by the standard awkward pause during which the people sharing my table wait as my phone is "loading data" or "fetching photos" [dear slow Blackie, I will still love you forever]. So, with that in mind, please bear with me when I ask, plead and beg Wikipedia to NEVER EVER CLOSE DOWN AGAIN!!!

Before I leave you all to ponder how weird I actually am, could I please ask for advice from someone with green fingers about Rosie my office plant?? Rosie was born a Ponsietta in December 2009, but has now evolved into a green non-ponsietta like creature that looks something like this. Rosie shares my Monday blues, my Friday afternoon euphorias, and my cold Green Tea, so I would love to share many other years of office life with her in red petaled glory ... any ideas as to how to ensure that???

thank you and hugs and many other things!

Gracie