And tell you why we are forever surprised with people.
There was another post about my obsession with rediff messageboards, and the people who kill time and English language in that space. But these two incidents took the cake because it involved two people at the top of their game, at work.
- I saw someone (a fairly technical guy who has assembly language coming out of his ears) with an xkcd strip open. Now, being a devoted xkcd fan (read:nerd), I pointed to him that the fun with xkcd is in the title text, which pops up like a tool-tip and holds an in-joke. He told me, this is a math/programming joke and it’s clear, the tooltips are descriptions of the joke. Then he and another colleague went on to try and solve the joke. Really, I kid you not. Either you get it or you don’t, you don’t work them out?!?
- There is another who plays the keyboard. He even has a rock band. I heard him hum something familiar so I asked him if he has been OD’ing on Cream. He said no, then paused and went on to hum a famous riff. “What song is that?”, he asked me. Now any self respecting person who seems to be remotely interested in music will know this song. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Which song? Useless trivia for you included, as a freebie.
[Okay, I am an xkcd addict - this and this and this and this and this for your reference. Please, I beg you, put your cursor on the image. I personally find the Nash/Feynman one very funny.]
Retro, you will love it: This riff is exceedingly popular amongst beginner guitar players, a guitar store in London put up a sign saying “Absolutely, under no circumstances at all are customers allowed to play Stairway to Heaven, Sweet Child of Mine or __________ while trying out guitars. Thank You.” The sign is here ]
Sigh.
Well, there was another incident with a seemingly ubiquitous Monty Python reference, but I will skip that one since I don’t expect everyone to get it anyway.
Let’s see:
Guess 1: The only song which half of the world believes I can play. Hotel california.
Guess 2: Smoke on the water – tum-tum-tum/tum-tum-ta-tum… Oh!
Guess 3: Tut-ta-Tut-ta-Tut-ta-Tut-ta-Ta-ta-tum…. O keep your eyes on the road /your hands upon the whee-ow-ll….
Layla is tougher…. so I will leave it at these three.
Oh. Now that I see the video, it IS smoke.
Okay, now this is a genuine appreciation thingie and not one of those mindless Stu Sutcliffe trivia. After Gillan quit and Coverdale came into DP, and this was Mark 3; what was the minute little alteration that Coverdale did to the song whenever he wa singing it live?
I give up.
I, apparently, am not that big a DP buff.
I wouldn’t show off gyan, dude, I ain’t retrograde, only Retrosexual.
You know how SOTW starts? “We all came down the Montreaux….” etc etc etc….
Since Coverdale was not one of them who came down the Montreaux (Gillan was), so on live performances, Coverdale sang it as “They all came down the Montreaux”
Brillianto.