Great expectations

This is getting a little old and I've no idea if it's a spoof, genuine or the truth embellished, but it's a great example of someone with a shameless sense of entitlement:

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon

meeting somone determined to introduce him to reality:

Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment.

David

David then illustrates his point with a suitable pie chart, along with increasingly creative ways of saying "no" to somebody who doesn't understand any part of that word. Read the full version here and hope that when you're next confronted by outrageous cheek you can respond with creative irony rather than being left speechless by effrontery. Ratita at the Metafilter Weblog found this.

Busy doing nothing

Although between jobs at the moment, I seem to be quite busy at the moment. Doing what, I'm not sure, but the time's running through my fingers like water. I haven't been pondering anything very much. Maybe this is a good thing - I've been told I "think too much" - if this is true, perhaps I should be thankful that I can stop this troublesome process with something short of a lobotomy.

Anyway, it's nice weather to be mindless in - beautiful blue skies with just the right number of small white clouds to stop it looking stark and pitiless, lovely patches of dappled shade under the apple trees at the bottom of the garden, frogs basking on the side of the pond and plopping back in when disturbed.

I could be thinking about religion - my partner's looking at a book on the life of Jesus at the moment, which from my brief flicking through it, appears to address some of the independent historical evidence, but seems to come to the conclusion that the description of Jesus and his acts as described in the Gospels is historically accurate by a process of begging the question. I'm vaguely interested in reading it myself, as well as checking out sources such as Josephus and Tacitus and maybe learning a bit more about contemporary figures who definitely were historical (such as Herod and Pilate). At the moment I'm not convinced that we have any direct historical evidence that can tell us anything concrete about Jesus or even whether he definitely existed (maybe he was a legendary figure, based on tall tales which grew up around a real original, like Robin Hood). But I'm no expert and I've got a feeling that research in, my current state of mental torpor, may be slow. But if I do find out anything interesting or surprising on the subject, I'll be sure to post.