Check that

I know this makes sense in some way - it was printed on a cheque I saw recently: "Security feature: this cheque contains micoprinted signature lines, the absence of which may indicate a fraudulent cheque." Now, chances are that if someone was printing a fraudulent cheque, they'd leave that bit off - especially as most people these days, in Australia anyway, don't give or receive cheques that much and probably wouldn't know what wordage is usually included.

The original sin

Someone asked me a question on the weekend which I wasn't able to answer then and haven't been able to answer since - even though I have been seeking advice from others, and doing some net research. The question: what is the equivalent one-word noun for not committing a sin. The best to emerge so far is "good deed" or the Jewish "mitzvah" but it seems that if the powers that be wanted to encourage people to do good, there should be a word to acknowledge the act. Any ideas? Especially since there are a few for sin - trespass, transgression to name a couple. (Or does it make it easier for the Church to heap guilt on people if they only have a word for "sin" as someone suggested?)

Just like the old times

I'm sitting in the newly-opened Gloria Jean's at Emerald Lakes (on the Gold Coast, Queensland) and as I catch up on some writing I can't help but think of JK Rowling and other authors who have penned works in coffee shops. It could have been the middle of winter and their abodes didn't have heating, or because they lived alone and just wanted some company around them, but, as long as you have the right coffee shop, the right atmosphere, and aren't being moved on quickly, I can see that it would be quite pleasant to spend time sitting and writing (or typing) - especially on a cold, wet, Winter afternoon. Seems like almost a shame to head on back to work after lunch ...

It's all in how you say it

During online training the other day, we were doing formulas in Excel and the trainer was trying to tell us to make sure, that when we were using IF (a logical test) formulas, that we had to make sure to give the either/or option responses in "those things you do in the air when you're having a conversation". I'm pretty sure she meant quotation marks - as was everyone else in the training judging by the number of murmurred assents.

Pretty Average

I have recently been doing some online training courses with work and was a bit surprised when an assessment (of the training) survey arrived via email. It put me in a quandry. I thought the trainer was good but the only options for rating were POOR, AVERAGE or EXCELLENT. I didn't want to mark them as AVERAGE because they were better than that, but I really didn't want to mark them as EXCELLENT either. And there wasn't anywhere on the form to make "any other comments". Just goes to show you can still make surveys tell you what you want them to.

My life would ...

... suck without you. Catchy title for a song and every time I see it on the Glee album playlist I think "there's no way I'll ever like that" but it is growing on me so much so that today I checked to see what wonderful tune was playing and found I had been totally sucked in!