A male friend phones on a Friday afternoon to see if you are free for dinner. You are, so you accept and both agree on a restaurant and an approximate time to meet there. You finish up your work, pack things away, and catch the appropriate transport to make sure you arrive at the arranged dinner date at the correct time. On your way, you receive a text message from your dinner date saying he has booked a table at agreed restaurant for 7:15pm and asking if that's ok. You text back saying that is perfect. You are completely on time for making the dinner in a punctual fashion. You disembark your transport and make your way to the restaurant. Entering the restaurant at exactly 7:15pm, you note it's quite busy, and take a moment to scan the room to locate your dinner companion. Question One: Where is your dinner date? Question Two: What name did he book the dinner reservation under?

Attendees: Rupert, Tor, Alvina, Mark, Michelle [and a whole lot of other people we don't really care about cos they wouldn't share their chips and dips] Apologies: Tristan "I'd rather be a indoor lawn bowler", Peter "let my inner real estate agent free" Spectator: Bruce Floater: Matt "I'll wait til I find out who has the best snacks before I decide on which team invitation I will accept" Facilitator and All Round Grand PoohBah: Richard Date: 22 June 2006 Time 5:30-7:30pm Location: Level 5 The extremely punctual Learning Services Group Quiz Team representatives arrived in good form and fashion complete with both liquid (wine, beer and coke) and solid (Chips, Grainwaves and ah, more Grainwaves) to represent the learning department in the Company Pub (noPub) Quiz last night. It was quite clear from the onset that the core Company values of working together were cast aside for this important and extremely competitive competition. Departments with representative teams remained extremely separate with no "data sharing" whatsoever. A number of Teams flouted their (obviously) large social budgets with huge platters of well organised snacks, dips, nibbles, and generous amounts of wine, champagne and beer. We extended our hands of friendship but they were smacked back with nary a sniff of the dips. But our steely resolve wasn't tarnished by our meagre sustenance, in fact if anything, our determination to edge out all our competition solidified into a great pep-talk from Rupert who decided we were gonna "kick their asses with our brains" or.. something like that (I wasn't really listening) and he dubbed us Team Drunken Codrex (we were carrying sick and wounded as well.. hell, we really should have been handicapped now I think about it) and hoped the other teams would become slow and sleepy by eating so many carbs so late in the day. Our small number (5 members, dropping to 4 after Mark had to leave after Round 3) pitted against the other mighty teams (8-13 members, all with cell phones though I'm not accusing anyone of anything) did very well in all rounds. Thanks to Alvina's sterling knowledge of All Things American, Tor's amazing islands of information regarding "young people's" music, Mark's good fortune to have attended school the day the Maths tutor taught him all about angles, Michelle's fascination with diseases, and Rupert's knowledge of Nuclear Radiation yet again proving to be a winner. While we didn't manage to win the trophy, we proved yet again: Online Delivery (Keepers of the Company Knowledge) are solid C Grade students of life and general knowledge. We tied a respectable 3rd place in the competition. (I think.. pretty sure we did anyway.. we sure in hell weren't last, i know that much) I am pretty sure we had a good time and if there had been an award for team work, we would have won that. A HUGE thanks to Richard for running such a smooth quiz show, compiling challenging questions and ensuring we all had a super evening. Lessons Learned: Next time, someone read the sports section of the paper for goodness sakes! [this post originated as an internal Company email and therefore, has been modified somewhat for public consumption - mostly to correct the spelling errors but also, to protect the innocent]

I'm awake. It's dark and quiet and I'm wondering why. The strange peacefulness of this busy street. No cars, no trucks - maybe that's why I'm awake. I haven't heard it without traffic since I moved in here. I can hear the rain soft against the car parked outside my window. How romantic. Wait, against the leaves too - that's better. Steady. Wet rain. No wind. Why am I awake? Did the rain wake me? I fell to sleep so quickly, easily. Dammit. I look at the clock - midnight in Australia; after lunch in the UK; mid morning in Wisconsin. Christ why can't I just see the time here. Time blindness. Legacy chat habit. I think about what the Dutch might be doing. There's a sound at the end of each breath. What is that? that's new. Heh, a wheeze, how cute. Like an old man who smokes too much, or my sister when her asthma is bad. Aw crap, why am I awake? there's no real reason. I was dreaming. Dreaming about Braden and the headphones. He was wanting to know why I'd bothered bringing my iPod to work when I didn't bring any headphones. Pointless he said. Waste of time, he added. I didn't have a good answer so I made him roll his eyes by saying I used the reflective surface on the back of the iPod to put my lipgloss on neatly. He rummaged in his drawers with an exasperated sigh and found a pair of bud earphones I could use. He's such a solutions kind of guy. Strange dream until I realised that it wasn't. It had happened this afternoon during a day with dreamlike qualities. Yesterday afternoon. There's that wheeze again. Now a cough. That's another new. That's not good. I cough again. Not satisfying either. And it hurts. I think maybe that's what's woken me up. I didn't have that cough when I went to bed. I have that cough now. I reach for the juice beside my bed. It's orange and mango, left over from dinner eaten in my room. So nice to come home after walking home from class tonight to find dinner plated up for me - a distinct advantage to living with people is that they do nice things like cook dinner. I keep forgetting that's what people do for each other when they live together so it's still a lovely surprise after such a long Wednesday. I ate my dinner on my crumpled bed, still in my red coat while texting Christchurch, being so cold nosed from the night air and feeling small amongst the tangled bedding. The food was good. Just what I needed. Just like the juice. It had been a nice walk home from the college. Class had gone well. People were kind with their thanks on this the last evening class of the term. It doesn't always go well, but tonight it did. The night had been still, and dark, and cold. I listen as thunder rolls it's way around the bowl of the city - it always feels that shape on nights like this. I sip juice again as I feel another cough coming. Sore throat. Clock says it's 12:45am in Australia - stupid time zone brain - getting on for 4pm in the UK, Wisconsins'll be thinking about lunch - Dutchies'll be packing up to go home from work. Cough. Ow. Dammit. Why am I awake?