24 of 30 - Next Weekend

   Let's talk about next weekend. What wild plans do you have for next weekend?

   At work on Monday my coworker Amy brought up that the Orange County Beekeeper's Association barbeque. After five minutes of discussion I realized that by "this weekend" she meant the weekend 12 days hence. The weekend I would describe as "the weekend after next."

   Notwithstanding my confusion, I get the impression it is extremely common, around here anyway, to mean the second weekend from now as "next weekend." I've run into this a number of times ... and it makes no sense to me.

   The argument I suppose is that the upcoming weekend is "this weekend," and the following one would then be next. Still though. The definition of "next is "(1) immediately following in time" or "(2) nearest or adjacent in place or position." That sounds to me like it clearly means this upcoming weekend.

   I recalled they had a better way of differentiating the weekends in Ireland, but offhand couldn't recall exactly what it had been, so I emailed my cousin Tim back in the old country. His response was kind of silly so I'm going to repost it: ( Hunting Wild Gruffolo in Ireland )

   So yeah, in Ireland the upcoming weekend is "next weekend" and any day of the following week is "Monday week," "Tuesday week," ... "Saturday week."


This Weekend
   On a related note, there's THIS weekend. Is it the one that just occurred or the one that is about to occur? Clearly during, and on Friday, "this weekend" is the one that's occurring presently. Otherwise I think it's a matter of context. Either next weekend can (also) be "this weekend," or if you ask "what did you do this weekend" you're clearly talking about the one immediately past.

   So it depends on if you're talking in past tense. But apparently that can even be unclear. Because I speak with an Irish inflection, sometimes people mistake questions for statements and vice versa. So on a number of occasions I've asked "have a nice weekend?" and gotten the response of "thanks!" d:
   This of course makes me want to hunt them like wild gruffolo.

24 of 30 - The Wrong Way to Eat A Bagel

Sometimes people's reluctance to "think outside the box" is rather surprising.

(1) Back when I was working in a law office, occasionally I would be photocopying documents ALL DAY. I asked my immediate supervisor, if we could put a stool in the copying room so I'm just just standing there all day. "We could..." he responded, "...but that would be lazy!" ...So it would be lazy if I were to sit down, but it's not lazy when people who are at their desk all day get to sit down?
(2) The other day I was eating a bagel with creamcheese from a nearby cafe. This coworker we'll call J comes and looks at me like I'm totally insane and comments "I have NEVER seen someone eat a bagel like that!" I look at the bagel and try to see what's wrong. I ask him, and he says "both sides together like a sandwich like that.. NORMALLY people eat it in halves." Yeah well, this is the way the cafe gave it to me, if I was making it myself yeah I'd probably eat it half by half, but why would I disassemble the bagel to make it take longer to eat?
(3) The following day I was moving a pile of debris to a dumpster around the corner, so I went and got a dolly. "You're using a dolly??" coworker B asks, looking at me like I was the laziest person he'd ever seen. "Well, its either two trips with this or eight trips with armfulls..." "I guessss" he skeptically concedes, as if it would still be more meritorious to go the cave man route.

What's wrong with these people? Personally, _I_ always make sure there's not an obvious reason why someone's doing something before I make fun of them.


Unrelated Picture of the Day

Spain's Arc de Triomf Pretty Good