Venture Capitalists are Made of Money. And Breakfast.

[lwood]

[edit: forgot my footnotes!]

Here at the Mad Scientists' Home, we have taken to renting out our spacious, well-rigged auditorium from time to time as the NIH aren't nearly the sugar daddies they used to be and, well, Mad Science ain't cheap, nor is a shiny new mortgage.

This morning, and afternoon, we're pimping out to some venture capitalists with whose name, Gentle Readers, I shall not burden you. They wanted a pet IT lackey, and the tips must be nice, because my manager has been in there, as their lackey, since seven this morning.

The Bay Area's plutocracy, naturally, moves on its stomach. Being plutocrats, they can afford a most excellent breakfast spread, and being the Bay Area, it's primarily reasonably healthy stuff: a full bagel & lox tray (yes, with capers), bitty quiches, sausage, some sort of rolled omelette logs, berries, fruit, and yogurt, and so on.

At quarter of nine, I enter, accompanied by a Mad Scientist/Knitter^*, who wonders who you have to know to get a piece of that.

As I round the receptionist's desk, I find out. The early crew of Administration (your Purchasing, Accounting, usw) is flocking, en masse towards the spread^†.

It is the honor and privilege of the Administrative Staff to clean up leftovers from such buffet presentations.

I drop off anla-shok, my humble Powerbook G4, and come about to join them.

"We shall fall upon it like ravens!" I declared with good cheer amidst the happily babbling, mildly orderly, throng.

"Shh!" hissed someone who cared.

"We shall fall upon it like very quiet ravens," I amended, as I loaded up my plate for Second Breakfast.

This is the second day in a row that the wolves have left us a nice kill: yesterday, a vendor show came with an embarrassment of small burritos, quesadillas, chips, salsa, and guacamole, and lo, it was both Lunch and Afternoon Tea.

The fruit usually disappears last; I shall have to see if I cannot also procure Elevensies from yon carcass...

-- Lorrie

^* - She had a fresh new pair of socks on her DPN's, in a lovely sage heather wool. A bit scratchy when knit up, but we expect it to soften in the wash.

^† - usw is short for und so weiter, which German for et cetera, and therefore we have had our Inevitable Dash of Pretension for the morning with a trilingual sentence, woohoo. 8-)

Comments

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

There are no footnotes. This is a sad thing.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I has fix-ed my footnotsies!

-- Lorrie

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

And there was much rejoicing!

(Huzzah.)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Is it time to eat the minstrels yet?

-- Lorrie

[wolfs-daugher.livejournal.com]

*sigh* It appears Sigdrifa has found the power strip again.

Sparrow

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Nuh unh! The mail is flowing, the webmail is working...

--the mailing lists, however, may be not working. I will look.

-- Lorrie

[wolfs-daugher.livejournal.com]

I cannot get to the log in page. there is not even a 'time out' box. It is simply a blank white screen....

Sparrow

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to tell you--I'm at my office, surely outside my home network, and went to the webmail page (https://webmail.nerdalfheim.org/), and it's working for me.

Try the link in this reply instead?

When it's a matter of "oh look my cat wants to be a hat again", it times out--not just to the webmail server, but to Hrafnar, Westria, and all the rest of it.

-- Lorrie

[maiagirl.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Tech people get the best in free food. Teachers are probably a close second in quantity, but techie folk get the quality.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Well, technically, it's the scientists who usually qualify for the food; admin (techies inclusive) just cleans up after.

-- Lorrie

[bergtagen.livejournal.com]

"† - usw is short for und so weiten, which German for et cetera, and therefore we have had our Inevitable Dash of Pretension for the morning with a trilingual sentence, woohoo. 8-)"

Erm, just to interject a bit of accuracy in your Inevitable Dash of Pretension, thereby preventing a future faux pas, the phrase you're reaching for is un so weiter, which means "and so on", the German equivalent of et cetera. The phrase you give in your footnote, "und so weiten", is more like "and in such a way widen", although this may be the more appropriate phrase in light of your feast. Now, I have to go start the dashi if I wanna eat lunch. Blessuð!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

This is what I get for editing after the fact and in a tearing hurry to boot.

*burp*

Fixed!

-- Lorrie

[rentravler.livejournal.com]

† - usw is short for und so weiten, which German for et cetera, and therefore we have had our Inevitable Dash of Pretension for the morning with a trilingual sentence, woohoo. 8-)

Woot! I love me some Latin and German pretensions. Rock! Duly added to my vocabulary. With the appropriate ending consonant.

And, really, civilized facade aside, what is somebody else's leftover catering for but to add to the variety of my daily diet? I mean really. I'm particularly fond of the fancy desserts many of them have.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

With the appropriate ending consonant.

Which I even fixed in the original post. 8-)

what is somebody else's leftover catering for but to add to the variety of my daily diet?

It was just going to waste anyway, and waste is bad!

*watches for other ravens, makes cache for later, flies off*

This was brekkie, so not so much on the dessertage, but free feesh makes up for this.

-- Lorrie

[rentravler.livejournal.com]

Tangental question: I'm not really associated with any scavengers that I know of, but have a huge scavenger streak anyways. Obviously cloyetes are, but foxes aren't scavengers, correct? That would be my closest scavengerish type animal. Hmm.

I once was the first one to snag some scrumptious looking chocolate cake after a group had eatne but still whie they were beign Professionally Developed in the other room. Ah. The bold get the booty. And, I agree, waste *is* bad. ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*grin* Despite the sundry nature shows, there are few carnivores who would turn their little snouts up at food they didn't kill themselves. Foxes, while they are only too happy to pounce on any small rodent nearby, wouldn't scruple at nibbling at a fallen deer, either, assuming it didn't smell too punky (at which point, the ravens are still non-picky).

And, I agree, waste *is* bad. ;)

You are, I trust, familiar with Coyote's Commandments (http://cadhla.livejournal.com/827233.html), as interpreted by the inimitable Miz cadhla?

Otters, particularly sea otters, are also tremendous gluttons, but prefer things fresh--but 1/3 of one's mass per day is a lot, however you get it.

-- Lorrie

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

See, when there are leftovers in my usual abode, an e-mail is sent to the entire building. The building then tilts as THE ENTIRE POPULATION goes in search of the food.

Also, for your own language snobbery, atbp. is Tagalog for "at iba pa"... in other words, usw., etc., itd. (i tak dalej, Polish), ezv. (en zo voort, Dutch), il.il. (ilaalu ilanngullugit, Greenlandic), o.s.frv. (og svó framvegis, Icelandic).

[lwood.livejournal.com]

The building then tilts as THE ENTIRE POPULATION goes in search of the food.

Hee!

Also, for your own language snobbery,

...I love you, man.

-- Lorrie

[lysana.livejournal.com]

At my previous job, whenever the corporate masters showed up, there would be large quantities of food procured. Being light eaters, there were leftovers galore. We called it being the hyenas after the lions were done.