Possible PLUG Mug, Thursday Aug 1

[ssfc72]

Ok, anyone interested in getting together for a coffee this Thursday at Tim Hortons on Monaghan Rd. around 7 pm or later?

[fox]

I’m interested. Maybe we can get the illustrious virtual machine man - turned storyteller to come out again. 

[Jason]

I should be able to make it, probably a little after 7.

[buster]

I would love to be there - amazing things seem to happen at your Horton meetings. Unfortunately, we have our cousins as our house guests. Their appreciation of computer talk can only be measured with negative numbers.

When we were driving home from our son's home in Newmarket Sunday, I remembered something from last Thursday's meeting. No idea why it came to mind.

An attractive Asian woman sat not too far from our table. I probably wouldn't have noticed her except for Mike poking me and pointing. Even then I didn't notice much except for the knee length black skirt, red sink blouse, white scarf, jet black hair and eyes. And maybe the earrings.    Mike might be able to describe her better because of the time he spent staring at her. Bill unfortunately was facing the wrong way, but did watch carefully as she sauntered out.

Two odd things though. She just got very hot water as her drink, sat down, took a little perforated silver ball on a silver chain and dunked the ball in the hot water. I knew from my childhood she was making a special tea. No idea how she handled the wet tea ball, but Mike might remember.

Here's the other odd thing: She arrived about 10 minutes before the sale of the computer took place, and left about 3 minutes after the 14 year old left.

Coincidence? Personally I think the two of them are connected.

[fox]

Great prose again, Harry! I must be much less observant than you (or less interested in good looking Asian women), because I didn't see her sit or use a tea ball. I know that the guy who bought my laptop was driven there by his mother, and I can't rule out that his mother was Asian. Her leaving 3 minutes after he did is consistent with her being his mother and keeping an eye on the transaction. But her coming in 10 minutes before is not.

If you saw her looking our way, I can only conjecture that she was staring at me and wondering why a good looking guy like me was sitting with all these old geeks. 

[Jason]

She probably arrived early to scope the place out or more likely to scope you weird-looking guys out before she let her kid get near you. But dammit, I always miss the good stuff.

[fox]

Ya gotta play to win, Jason. 

[buster]

"Mike had a couple of good stories about his latest Kijiji transactions, last evening!"

Love to read about some of that stuff. How about adding the stories to this thread?

[ssfc72]

I will let Mike tell his Kijiji stories, if he is so inclined. :-)

[fox]

In a nutshell, it was a bad week with Kijiji. I had one item (a watch) agreed for sale, a meeting set up and a no-show with no further communication. I had a digital camera agreed for sale, a request from the buyer for a morning meeting. I responded, but there was no further communication from that one either. The first one was particularly annoying. The meeting was set up that day and the buyer picked time and place (Tim's on Hunter). I waited 45 minutes. He never showed and wouldn't respond to any further messages. Why would someone do that? If he changed his mind it would be simple courtesy to let me know instead of wasting my time.

This must be a millennial thing. I had a grad student who was something like this. I would email her, and if she didn't like what I was asking, she would ignore the email and not respond. This knowing that she was going to need me for future references?

[buster]

Been thinking about this awhile this morning as I watered some plants and did last night's dishes. For over a week we have been concentrating on the 'sale' of items, instead of looking at the bigger picture.

You have over the years spent summers in Europe. You travel to different parts of the USA. You travel to western Canada. Sometimes you meet in very neutral places to transfer 'goods' to others - watch, computer, camera and we don't know what else. Simple innocuous transfers of things, in a public place. And they seem to be just what they appear to be - say a second hand camera. But that may not be the total truth.

I suspect that somewhere in those meeting places where no one showed up was an attractive Asian woman, wearing totally different clothes from last week, with some kind of photographic device.

I suspect your cover is blown Mike.