paper crane

2003-05-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah. Gonna stop blogging this one. No-one wants to hear mundane life stuff. Will do something more structured. New blog name will be posted here. Its been a learning experience.

2003-05-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

haven' blogged for ages. Starting to not like this blog though, I'm not really saying or discovering much that excites me at the mo.

2003-04-03T16:55:00.000-08:00

some more good words - inchoate, and Chaos, I like the way you have to do marbles in your mouth effect to say them. Also been reading James Gleicks book on Chaos Theory, about Lorenz's waterwheel. There is a classic example of such a thing in my street. Its a water 'feature', which is very random. You probably could predict the weather from it. After reading from the book, I have a whole new appreciation of it, which I can't communicate to anyone. Vey frustrating. I tried to tell a guy at a party about it last week, but this is probably why people tend to move away from me at parties...

2003-04-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

"There's no finer sight -- no finer sight -- than to see 12,000 United States Marines and corpsmen," Bush said, pausing for effect before delivering the next line -- "unless you happen to be a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard." - Dubya

Clearly the man has been watching far too many Gene Hackman movies.

2003-03-31T17:03:00.000-08:00

I just realised I don't have Frodo hair this time. I have Seinfeld hair.. Any hairdo from Seinfeld would be pretty bad actually, but mine is definitely a Jerry mini-mullet.

2003-03-31T17:01:00.000-08:00

Helmet-mounted soldier cams..

2003-03-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

Found this blog. A kiwi chick. Funny cos she also looks like Frodo and is a geek. Maybe I should try to meet her, but it could be freaky. I linked to her blog before but there is a website too.

2003-03-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

Another one of those find your name things.

2003-03-25T02:52:00.000-08:00

Went to the Planetarium in Wellington the other day, it was actually quite scary. The theme is the seven wonders of the Galaxy. Titans, black holes, blue stars, red stars, pulsars, etc. Its all very emphatic and grand. Makes you feel small really. I have definitely read to much sci-fi. I think it gives me a bit of a laissez faire attitude. You just wonder what the point of arguing over the office cleaners, or what the quality of your curtain material is or (wildly swinging across the scope of human concerns) having wars, when we are just miniscule specks of star dust whirling our way slowly into a black hole in the middle of the Galaxy, which is just a miniscule speck in the... you get the picture.

I don't think thats a cop-out, its just a never copping in.

2003-03-25T02:45:00.000-08:00

Mm, did I mention I read Vernor Vinge recently? A Fire upon the Deep. Very epic, and kind of refreshing. Its like old school sci-fi, talking about the galaxy rather than the universe, which is quite big enough when you think about it. Liked the characters too. None of them perfect, and good characterisation for all. Finished the Alistair Reynolds series too with Redemption Ark. Space Operas the way I like 'em. Think the female lead rocks, but the whole story and timespans/conspiracies are cool.

2003-03-25T02:31:00.000-08:00

War Schmar.

2003-03-23T00:09:00.000-08:00

I walked for 3.5 hours today, my legs were aching. That is so unfit. Its pretty far though, I reckon about 12 miles.

2003-03-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

Oh my God, just realised that the guys name on the war stuff link is Grover Furr. That cannot be a real name. Its genius - or at least Sesame St...

2003-03-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

google rocks! Get your results in Elmer Fudd, hacker, etc style..

2003-03-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

Looking for a transcript of this interview. Bit disappointed with the big man.

Not the only one I guess.

And a list of war stuff..

Thought I should read some more of his stuff again.
pilger in print link is where all the articles are.

2003-03-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

Made me feel very angry and feminist...

I can't quite define how I feel about this.

2003-03-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Pretty...

2003-03-11T00:38:00.000-08:00

Saw on the reg another wee story about Henry Raddick today. I read through some of his stuff again. So funny, but then the books that he finds stand on their own 'merits' :)

2003-03-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

Reading at the moment: A little bit of knowledge. Its basically all philosophy and maths etc ever condensed into soundbites. Quite interesting, kind of ahhhh, thats who said/invented that.

Just finished Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood, about a woman coming to terms with her past especially her childhood when she was bullied. The portrayal of the young girls was chillingly accurate. Also read Queen of Angels by Greg Bear, which like the other books of his, with the exception of Darwins Radio, I found unsatisfying and left with the feeling I had missed something. They are a bit too esoteric for me.

2003-03-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

mmm, I am attempting to write this from Mozilla, half the edit screen is blue and impenetrable. Oh Well. Just thought I'd point out that experts exchange should change its name to idiots exchange. Keeps appearing when I search google for asp stuff, except no-one seems to have a clue.

2003-03-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

Saw Donnie Darko on Sat. Great film. Loved Drew Barrymore.

2003-03-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of another favourite word. Motile. Why is it so much nicer to say than mobile?

2003-03-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here's one for the geeks. 2047 is the binary millenium. 11111111111. Pretty cool, but only if you grew up in a Christian -based society.

2003-02-22T16:15:00.000-08:00

well redhat installed. After much fecking aboot. I installed on my old pc, so I now have win98, winXP and redhat 8.0. Used partition magic to set it up which I think is a good tool, as you get the option of setting up a linux partition and it formats it to ext2. It installed OK, although I had to click ignore a few times as it complained about the partition table on the disk. I think this was because I was installing it on my second hdd which doesnt have the system partition on it so its gets worried about booting. I also didnt do a swap partition, but I think this is cool as the disk I installed onto is newer and better than the other one. Had to download and install a modem driver and the ALSA drivers for my sound chip. This was a bit of a faff, but it appears to be working. Its a very different kettle of fish to the old windows, but an interesting project.

2003-02-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

So my new fad for the next week is networking and sqlserver. I think the problem is that I set myself too many tasks. I'll stick to networking this week. Getting some redhat cds though, so going to try and install that too, as I have a new CDROM. Hoping that that was the problem last time. Its all part of the master plan, honest.

2003-02-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

Work is cool, doing ASP.NET and VB.NET. Its all so easy after JSPs. datagrids and similar especially. I have just obtained a load of ebooks - 51 on .NET, 16 on sql server 2000. So plenty to read there. My gui design skills are absolutely non-existent though, its really quite funny. Just as well we have designers for that. Found these sites useful: dontnet247, superdotnet, 4guysfromrolla. I have been really bad and given up on the C++. Story of my life really, I start something, and then leave it in a really half-arsed way. I need better goal power.

2003-02-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

This is a webcam on the street near where I work. You might see me crossing the road here to go to the cinema. The building in the centre of the picture is where the LOTR premiered in NZ and where the world premiere will be for part 3. Its got a big revolving ring above the door. :)

2003-01-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

Got a job, better than the other one. Hope it works out, its advertising agency/internet shop, so more lightweight tech than before, but busy, and new tech for me to learn. People seem very normal and well adjusted too, which will be a nice change. Don't know how I am going to fit in :)

2003-01-31T14:48:00.000-08:00

oh god, laugh - I nearly cried... Once again b3ta finds the gems.

2003-01-24T01:39:00.000-08:00

On a positive note, I am teaching myself C++. It was OK till I got to pointers and references and even pointer references. I love how in the book all the terminology is in italics, so you have wild pointers which makes it seem like you have to say it in hushed voice in case one jumps through the window, or starts growing out of your tv.

It has been good for making me understand all the stuff Java misses out or hides too. Anyway, this is going to be the year of new tech. Saw a good quote from Ester Dyson saying she was post tech. Made me feel a bit deflated, as I have so far to go before becoming even tech-tech. :) Yikes, what I am on about..oh yes, new tech. I plan to learn Perl and C++ this year. There is a virtuous OS project based here called Koha, so maybe I'll try to get involved in that. Need to get some more hardware, and broadband if so. Need that anyway, just can't afford it.

Got a job offer, which I am not ecstatic about as it has all the hallmarks of a motorway pile-up in the making. You know, the fog is getting lower, its 4.30pm on a Friday, and its just before Christmas... When an IT company has a shit website, with fundamental html mistakes, alarm bells ring - unless like me - you are down to your last 100 bucks and the rent is due..

ayay, redmeat was good lately. and tvgohome always makes me feel better because I realise I am not the most bitter, miserable git out there. :)

2003-01-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

looking for work in Wellington, which also sucks. I HATE recruitment consultants. They really are the lowest of the low. They're they guys who don't get into Used Car Sales School.

2003-01-24T01:23:00.000-08:00

Don Delillo sucks. Underworld is supposed to be this big American classic, and its duller than my first year Economics textbook. At least it works for getting me to sleep at night. You know there's some things you just don't get? Well for me its Don, anything by Dennis Potter (tv stuff - Blackeyes, Cold Lazarus etc) and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (everyone at Uni liked them - why?).

2003-01-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

Great BITCHY quote from popbitch...
Q. Parlez-vous Council?
No. 1: Pram Face

"Pram Face": a phrase used to describe a popstar
who has a face that looks more suitable on a
girl pushing a pram round a council estate.

(See Liz Atomic Kitten, Emma Bunton, Keisha
Sugababe, the ginger one out of Girls Aloud etc)

heehee..

Back in Wellington now. Been buying fabulous retro furniture - leather swivel chairs and smoked glass coffee tables. Top goods. I feel like the guys from Goodfellas when he kitted out his shag pad. Now for a leopard skin minibar and a soda fountain :) Must get a job soon, this life of ease is starting to get too much fun.

2002-12-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

Spent an evening in a Blues bar in Christchurch on Friday night. The country folk were hitting the town. I have never seen so many mullets in one room. Trying to think of a collective noun ( a la comzero while back), friend said 'a parliament of mullets'. Stroke of genius, I reckon.

In Kaikoura, staying on a campsite that offends my middle class sensibilities :) Its a bit like I imagine Southend or Clacton on Sea. One thing that really bugs me about kiwis and aussies both, they cannot talk - they have to yell all the time., and when you get one of these ocker nasal teenagers - jaysus its like a shed full of angry geese.

Saw LOTR 2. Fabulous, but still a bit much gay love, eh. Gimli asking Aragorn to toss him, par example. :) Thought Gollum was ace, and the opening scenes with Gandalf falling with the Balrog I could watch again and again. Got a wee bit bored of Frodo and Sam crying all the time. Favourite bit I think was when the riders had that battle with the Orcs on the Wargs, when they clashed together, you could almost feel it.

Back to Wellington soon, hope I get a job cos moneys tight..

2002-12-16T22:21:00.000-08:00

Since Wellington weell... Been in the South Island for a few weeks now. Visited rellies in Blenheim, Nelson, Hokitika. These are respectively - a credulous conspiracy theorist, David wassisname fan, 'we all live in the matrix' builder; a property developer with a garage that can contain 2 huge utes and 2 boats, as well as a timber workshop, and a holiday home on the Marlborough Sounds; a staunchly freemason baker who builds his own cars and listens to Limp Biskit and 666; a hippy getting back to her celtic roots by building a huge ceilidh room on her house and holding folk festivals, and tomorrow I meet the last of them. So god know what they will be like, but its all absolutely fascinating. Oh and these people are all around my mothers age.

What can I say about South Island, it is absolutely gorgeous. And after London, so echoingly empty of people, wonderful. The west coast is stunning temperate rainforest, with glaciers and snowy peaks, the steam rises off the trees during the day, and it is like a lost world. The Remarkables are - remarkable! I rode on a horse near them that was used in LOTR - Two Towers. The funny thing was the horse's name was Nigel, not quite as heroic as Shadowfax but hey.

Its supposed to be summer here but its cold, and at the Milford Sound we had to put snow chains on the car, very exciting. The prosaically named Homer Tunnel is quite the opposite in reality. Downwards sloping, one lane and the snow was dripping through the roof and falling in slushy lumps onto the car. Met some keas which are alpine parrotts, very funny - fat and inquisitive. The Sounds are breathtaking, and I am not that easily overawed by these things. Our boat steered right underneath a waterfall that was about the height of a 50 storey building, it was brilliant. Getting absolutely soaked trying to stand underneath it and look up, with the spray boiling up out of the water around us.

In Dunedin which is OK, just another town really. Tried to see some albatross nearby, but the weather wasn't right for them to fly. Got right up to a huge sealion to take pics, before reading the info that said stand 10 metres back. Ah well, lived to tell the tale. They have a great life, swaying on the rocks and then going for leisurely spiralling swims in the water.

Going fishing tomorrow hopefully, hey works sucks eh :)

2002-11-24T21:10:00.000-08:00

Oh god I remember these.. are you a comedian? Brings back the surreal cruelty of childhood...

2002-11-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

Top headline from NZ.

2002-11-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

Found out too that the Mount Doom and Mordor bits are filmed up in the volcanic area near Lake Taupo, so I shall have to see if I recognise bits. Now if I could just accidentally bang into Viggo Mortensen and cop a feel life would be complete :)

2002-11-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

In the amazing city of Wellington. Its so cool, all the houses are built on these crazy steep hills with San Franciscan streets. To get from the suburb we are staying in to the city centre, which is about 7 mins by car, you go through a steep gorge with luscious greenery - like something out of Gorillas in the Mist, then pop out into downtown. Love it.

Oh, got recommended this the other day, very good if someone close to you is DOING YOUR HEAD IN.

Peter Jackson a la LOTR (and Bad Taste), lives in a swank suburb here. Went searching, because I am a geek, for the places where they filmed parts of it. Mount Victoria is where the Nazgul comes up on the hobbits in a forest and they hide under a treeroot. It is quite eerie up there even though its right in the city, all these huge pine trees. Not helped at all by my companion whispering "Bagginssss" when we were in a particularly silent bit of the path...

2002-11-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, got to NZ 2 weeks ago on Thursday. (this thursday). Its pretty much as i thought it would be, which is not a bad thing. Great houses and there is so much spppacccceeeee... also bungalows, old people, vivid greenery everywhere, clean beaches. its a bit like cornwall so far.

Landed in Auckland, we went down to the harbour on Saturday and checked out all the Americas Cup boats, it was great, there were all these really plush launches and yachts - a real rich mans/womans playground. Since then been visiting a few people, and generally playing around in the new car and laughing at cows. Contrary to popular belief, NZ is not solely populated by sheep, the north island is full of cows, and they are a bit weird. They all stand still facing in completely different directions like they've seen something really interesting about 2 feet in front of them, or they are licking telegraph poles, or sniffing each others bums. Its an easy life I guess.

Went to White Island which is just off the coast from a place called Whakatane (pron. fuckatanay), its basically a crater in the sea, and very stinky, but very interesting, lots of sulphur and poisonous lakes, hissing gases, and steaming calderas. The boat trip gave us egg sandwiches for lunch though, which i guess tied in with the general aroma of the place. Rotorua also full of such things including a boiling mud volcano and various graphite pools which were apparently 115C. All I could think of was how much I wanted to poke things with a stick to see what happened (to the stick).

Am looking forward to the south island more, as its more rugged. The volcanic stuff has been pretty cool, but hey once you've seen one boiling mud pool you've seen them all really.. :) plop..plopplopplop...PLOP.. plopplop etc.

okay time to go. If you haven't seen the reg link, here it is.

2002-11-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

I bet you any money that he repeatedly clicked on the same hyperlink over and over cos it didn't load in 2ms, and then his Win Millenium Ed crashed..

2002-11-05T03:02:00.000-08:00

I like this guy...they made a David Lynch film with funny talking animals.

2002-11-04T02:09:00.000-08:00

Quick synopsis of the last month.. Went to the Western Isles for 2 days. Magical. Barren, isolated, seabound - fantastic. The Butt of Lewis was the furtherest north I have ever been and it was great, just a rocky headland with a lighthouse and some seabirds. I checked it out on an atlas when I got home and the next place from there if you went north directly would be the part of Siberia that is close to Alaska.

There are some incredibly beautiful beaches out there too, and I hope they stay that way..

After that it was south to the inlaws - tiring but as expected really. Too many questions. They always have a plan and cannot comprehend the being without one. Typical paranoid brits really.

Anyway, left that decaying heap of brushing things under the carpet, getting your money back, not trusting foreigners, sterile country villages full of old folk and dirty cities of hard eyed and narrow minded 'business' people for the new world on 28/10/02. No plans to go back.

In Korea now (South - where people get to wear the own choice of clothes).
Interesting place.. the people are quite mad, and very nice. We climbed up a really scary mountain, which had handrails along the knife edge ridges and metal steps up to the pinnacles. Ladies were there with full make up and handbags, 'Jades' :) and people had little kids with them, as they sauntered past us clinging to the rails with our eyes half shut against the freezing wind and flurries of snow not to mention the sheer cliffs to either side...

We have been given raw baby squid in chilli sauce for breakfast, and things like acorn jelly which is like brown blamange (?) - absolutely minging.

English translations have also been fun, I bought a pair of tights today (did i mention it was freezing), and the package said 'with tighting band of waist for to stop the dust entering the underware' and 'hold up the bottoms above the area of the band during pulling up in order that the shape of the bottoms is more please' - fabulous.

I just reported a stray cat in the dorm to the guy in our hostel too, and the people staying here are so stereotypical - 2 germans with their shirts tucked in, an indian with a tache doing a phd and an australian chick called Esmerelda importing hairclips to Melbourne. Especially the germans who would not eat the breakfast stuff laid out on the table 'because it is not 9 oclock yet, and breakfast starts at 9 oclock'. :)).

Am having fabulous time...!

2002-10-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just did a search for my blog title (Paper crane - what kind of crazy moon talk is that) with Google. Results 1 and 10 with all the words were smogand silent passion, which respectively seem to be something I haven't quite figured out yet and a site about manga yaoi (gay) and shonen-ai (boy's love). Which just goes to show how strange a place the internet is.

2002-10-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Cool. I love lego.

2002-10-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Got this off abstractplain , must remember to install once I have PC back.

Feeling wierd about not having access to decent PC for a couple of months..more than anything that will motivate me to get a job. Shocking work ethic but hey. I STILL haven't done my damn architects exam, feel like such a slacker. Its hard to concentrate up here though, my mother makes these fantastic meals every day, and all the fresh air is killing me. Its too far away from any sort of pressure or reality. :) And I am complaining about this...no not really, I just love to feel guilty about not working hard enough.

2002-10-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

hee hee.. a shoal of Argument Fish being followed by a Truth Shark

2002-10-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Toby Young's 'how to lose friends and alienate people'. Probably should have been called 'how not to attract women, especially ones half your age and out of your league'. It appears to be almost exactly the same story as Ben Eltons (I think) tale about trying to have a baby, and that High Fidelity one. There is a promise of a storyline, but in fact they are identical books about geeky self-centred men in their thirties. I think they sell because in the end all of these guys manage to get the girl despite their numerous failings. Sadly, probably not a reflection of reality.

I think its bother me because the thought that maybe most men are like this is quite scary. They just seem so unstable, as if one minute they really believe they are god, then the next minute then are howling like a kicked puppy. Ach, I guess that why there are so many books on the subject, I have a funny feeling men feel the same way about women - uncomprensible emotional drives of the opposite sex. That's probably why I'm sitting here in front of the computer rather than talking to anyone :)).

2002-10-05T04:23:00.000-07:00

Just checking out ladies weapons, courtesy of b3ta. Croizy. I notice on their site they said 'woo and indeed yay'. When are they going to learn the merits of hooey, I ask you.

2002-10-05T04:16:00.000-07:00

Hey ho. In the Highlands with parents for 2 weeks now, coolio. There is nothing that smells as good as the air up here. You have to go outside in the morning and breathe deeply through your nose, you can smell the water in the river, and the damp grass, and the breeze coming off the hills with faint woody smells from the heather and huge lime and ash trees in the garden. Wonderful. Your hair goes really soft when you wash it in the water, as it come straight from a rock pool under the waterfall on the hill above the farm, and you feel so clean when you wash. Not like London water - it has this strange ability to make you feel dryer the longer you spend in it.

Spent time with the nieces yesterday, the oldest one is nearly two. We gave her a couple of mouthfuls of wine and she guzzled it then spent the rest of the evening throwing balloons in the air and running up and down the room shouting 'yeee-haa!'. I think she might have slept well last night.

2002-09-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

Now where I am? Last week after my last blog I went on a mission to the Highlands (my place of birth and where I call 'home'), to leave some goodies I can't bear to part with but am not taking to New Zealand. Mainly books, always is... Read a good trilogy on the train (c'mon it takes 8 hours each way), the John Updike books - called A Rabbit Omnibus. There is a fourth book that I shall have to get but I think he probably dies at the end so I'm a bit worried. They are about the life of a guy called Rabbit Angstrom and essentially a year out of 3 succeeding decades of his life. Very, very intense detail which I don't normally go for, but in this case it was really cool. For some reason it reminds me a bit of the cohen bros film 'The man who wasn't there', just I suppose because there is a lot more going on visually with the main character than what he is actually saying.

On Friday had a night out to say bye to friends, except I was asleep in a chair most of the time, so completely missed my own leaving party, what a loser. Apparently there where quite a lot of people there, which is really nice, but I never godamm spoke to any of them! Ah well, its always the way.

Looking forward very much to S. Korea and NZ now, getting in touch with rellies and making plans for hiking, buying our first car and generally doing new lifestyle things.

Still trying to do my Java architect exam but its amazing how attractive the prospect of cleaning out the rubbish bins looks when you gotta study....

Oooh, I won 32 pounds on a scratch card yesterday, it was very exciting, I feel it is justice after I lost my purse on Friday including the money in it.

ok, I'll be back when I have something interesting to say....

2002-09-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Now this makes me glad I left work!

2002-09-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

argh. my god. Its shows you need to be at work in order to remember to blog. Was in Newquay at the weekend. It was cool, stayed in a really classic british B&B. Breakfast between 8.45 and 9.15 only, artex everywhere, and bathrooms with those shit shredders at the back of the toilet. :)

Went to a good club though, which was great after not having been to one for ages and getting jaded with the whole dancey thing anyway. It was quite wee, which I like although there seemed to be a strange preponderance of men who showed they where attracted to you by smelling your hair. It was a bit distracting while you were trying to dance, but not actually offensive. Quite interesting in an anthropological way I suppose. As was some of the dancing :) Called koola.

I had a friend at Uni who used to draw little guys like these, makes me a bit nostalgic. One of them was called Shengis Woo, and there was another one called the Bishop. We used to especially like them after a wee toot.

2002-09-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

humphf.. still sorting out the goddamm lists of my possessions for insurance.. Having fun making car boot sale lists though. Was thinking the other night, when I went to Australia I had one rucksack, when I came to London I had half a people -wagon, now I need a goddamm ship! hooey.

Money is not the root of all evil, property is. (Did Marx say that?). Mmm, well its true. The more you own the more it costs you, not just cash, but stress, responsibility and time. A drag.. Very nice not working though, as I can spend the afternoons from 2 till 4 lying on the sofa in a ray of sunshine. Its a cats life really :)

Need to do my architects exam before I go, while I got the time though. Gonna have to start asap really, to get it done before things get busy again. Got Xp from work (did I say that already?). Its pretty good actually I like it, and got VS.net and some other stuff, its all just sitting there waiting for me to try it. gonna have to wait a wee bit longer i think.

need to get some new fiction to read to, but dont want to buy as I'll have to cart the shit somewhere along with the rest of the books I may never read again but can't get rid of. Sentiment who needs it.

2002-09-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

hah, also for the first time, I am actually into one of these real life shows! Yes you guessed it - I'm a celebrity get me out of here! I'm not sure why exactly but its quite absorbing. All the papers and stuff keep going on about the participants, and really bitching away about the fact they are c list or d list or whatever. I don't think thats actually the point though, anyone who has had a whiff of fame always seems to lose the plot completely, and then try to find it up their own arse somewhere. (I think of Darius Danesh as I write - horrified to notice the other day in a photo that he was wearing 2 thumbrings - I also have this arrangement upon my digits. Ah well, I had them first.)

Anyway back to the celebs. I think they are more interesting to watch because they have extremely low levels of humility,(rant) especially Darren (who is he anyway), and Nigel Benn. Apparently he was quoted as saying that he has slept with 1000 women and is now a born again Christian. Whoop de f**king do. I think most blokes would agree to becoming Christian, having their arm chopped off, whatever if they got to sleep with 1000 women. Its an awful lot easier to repent afterwards that to not be a complete arse in the first place. (rant over..)

you see how involved I have become in this! Argh. :)

2002-09-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

I do believe it has been a week. blimus as the Romans used to say. Well, I finished work on Friday, and you would think this meant an easy life. Granted my time is my own to manage as I want, but I still seem to be doing a lot of work. Mmm. This New Zealand trip is somehow much more complicated than my trip to Oz was 6 years ago. Its the whole moving house shit as well I guess. Now I need luggage for my luggage.

Went to BodyWorlds exhibition on Sunday. It was fascinating. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who gets squeamish, especially as one thing that really strikes you is that it is clear each of the bodies belonged to a very different person. Their faces are all different, and other things like the state of the lungs or the size of their muscles. There was one guy who had really dainty hands and feet. I came away feeling a lot of respect for the people who donated their bodies, and for the Prof. I think his aim of educating people about the amazingness of our anatomy and the way it fits together, and the uniqueness of each individual really came across. I learnt a lot and it is no coincidence that I joined a gym this morning. There are quite a few examples of blocked arteries, cirrhotic livers and smokers lungs - yuk.

Last night was at the 25th anniversary run of the play Abigails Party at Hampstead theatre. Had seen it on TV not too long ago. I think it was a good thing too see before leaving London, don't really things have changed that much!

2002-08-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

comic book villany.

2002-08-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

ahah.

2002-08-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

paper towels that I work with may be sesquipedalianist... What the hell does that word mean!

2002-08-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

har, har me hearties. well, I have just managed to get myself a wee voluntary redundancy package from work. This may not sound too fabulous you think. However, I am off to New Zealand! Finish work on Friday and get to be a lady of leisure for a month or so. Coolio. Looking forward to travelling now, especially for the weather. Apparently 39% of Brits would like to emigrate. Just don't come to Wellington please. Its quite ironic in a way, clearly you go to the other side of the world for a reason, then people that you barely know say 'oh, don't worry I'll come and visit you'. F**k off, if I wanted to get to know you I'd stay here mate, y'catcha ma drift?

Anyway, I shouldn't be so nasty. Last night on the tube at Kings Cross had that Inspector Sands announcement, lo and behold within minutes we were told to evacute the station due to a fire alert. I always though people were winding me up saying it was a code word for fire. Always happens at Kings X too. I guess they're more jumpy than other stations.

So, only at work for four more days - weird. My best girlfriend is taking VR too. I think they might miss us, as anyone who works for a software house knows - 2 women leaving reduces the % of women by half, and techy blokes don't tend to meet women unless said ladies are allocated the adjacent desk at work.

2002-08-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

Following this story from the Register, went to MyFonts.com. Interesting, must remember to find out more. I like the word glyph too. But not as much as etymology and helicopter.

2002-08-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

See if you can find The Bonxies. They never write their own songs and they don't sound like any other band - mmm, alarm bells ring faintly in the distance. :) . I have it from a reliable source that the bus shelter is real. And that the computer is an Amstrad CPC 6128.

2002-08-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading 'Brighton Rock' by Graham Greene. Read 'Our man in Havana' a while back which I liked. Brighton Rock also good story, I like the way he describes things, its really physical, you can smell the air if you know what I mean. Anyway, I thought Pinkie reminded me a bit of Rorshach in the Watchmen. I wonder if Moore/Gibbons read this? The way he sees everything as black and white, and how he was really messed up when he was young seeing his parents in bed, and being scared. Dunno, maybe this has just become a stock Freudian way of explaining psychosis in young men.

2002-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

I want one of these.

2002-08-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well, pashmina was bought for a princely sum. Very nice it is too, and now my credit card has taken a hiding, things are fading back to normality. Very hot this weekend, very nice though, apart from the underground which was stinking,stifling and rank.. compared to normal - just rank. Went to a bar in Angel, which apparently used to be a celeb. hangout, but now seems to have been left behind somewhat. The roof dripped water from the toilets above and the DJ list was from last month. However it had a fab 30's style bar, all panels of brown wood, and mirrors at the back, like a big bedroom dresser. The bar itself curved out into the room. It reminded me of the brown cafes in Amsterdam, which I liked very much - much more than the dirty, formica-tabled, pseudo-dropout rich kid staffed coffee shops, with their embarrassments (collective noun) of british 20/30's men. Called the Medicine Bar (for reference).

2002-08-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

Its my birthday today!! Yay. And I'm going to be a complete bird, and buy a pashmina. Got taken to a fabulous bar last night. circular windows, 60s style seats all facing out, 42nd floor of former Nat West tower, watched the sun set over London with St Pauls just below us, and then all the lights coming on, whilst drinking expensive champagne and eating crab claws. I've said it once, I'll say it again - fabulous!!

2002-08-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

A guide to the UK. Its so cute. Especially about our houses.

2002-08-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

argh. got to do work. stop looking at internet... check this out though, its a thinkmap based thesaurus. I've seen thinkmap stuff before but this is very beautiful.

2002-08-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

Solipsism eh. I call it thinking like a man. I know thats sexist but its also true. So there.

2002-08-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

look no further...why didn't someone tell me about this before.! Anyway, under discoveries, there is hank. Among others.

2002-08-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

thanks to plane-boy, I link to this. Sometimes you need to remind yourself it is possible to have a life. :)

2002-08-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany"

2002-08-13T04:31:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. War sci-fi based on the authors experiences in 'Nam. Bit concerned about my new predilection for military stories. The scary thing is though, you read sci-fi books about what the future earth might be like after global warming etc, then you pick up a newspaper on the way to work and find out half the major cities of Eastern Europe has been declared Disaster Zones due to flooding, and the highest rainfall for 100 years. As Rolfie says in his cover version of Stairway to Heaven - Ooh and it makes me wonder..

2002-08-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

Was at a friends wedding on Sat. Very cool, but interesting as well. The bride's (who was looking very beautiful) dad, Scottish by birth but lived in South Africa, sang a Zulu song for his daughter at the end of the speech. Apparently zulu means heaven. Apparently also he is the tortured genius of South African rock. Cooler. I called him Mr. Brown most of the night, cos he does bear an uncanny resemblance to that tortured genius of Scottish comedy, specifically in the film Mrs. Brown.

2002-08-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

oh me, oh my. dammit, dammit, dammit!

2002-08-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Friday. 17.42pm. There's only one option. El Pub.

2002-08-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

quote-tastic today...

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

(Lewis Carroll)

from comp. quotes..

2002-08-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Had 2 pints of Fullers Ordinary at lunchtime, and am supposed to be sorting out the autobuild for my project at work. My ability to concentrate on the finer details of automated incremental database building is sliding down the right slope of the bell curve and gaining speed as I type.....

2002-08-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

well I am a fan of the new version 2, at last. Sortable tables - an oldie but always a goodie.

2002-08-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

In Memoriam Edsger W Dijkstra.

"As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later."

2002-08-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

Walked past a little boy in the rain today, just as he was turning his head up to try and catch the big drips off a shop awning in his mouth. His mother laughed and told him off. I like it when stuff like that happens, everyone is running around with umbrellas and holding their coats shut looking miserable except for this one person who thinks its all a cool new game.

2002-08-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

Went to the BBC Proms last night - supposed Spanish theme. The flamenco singer at the end and the orchestra were great but this I had no idea what the main saxophonist guy was going to be like. Jaysus... I had my suspicions as he was wearing a velvet jacket with gold lining. The showpiece was this . Thats his description. For 'mischievous saxophonic capers' read painful high pitched trilling noises. And he destroyed the Concierto de Aranjuez. Not that I am an expert on classical music, and I'm sure it was all very clever and contemporary, but I think turning a guitar composition from its rearrangment for trumpet into sax, and alternately speeding up bits, slowing others down, and making the rest sound like a 1980's psuedo-Miami Vice theme tune wasn't going to work. At least not on my shell-likes. grrr...
I think I'm going to have to invent special tags for marking up rants.

2002-08-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I have just written the worst user interface in C# I have ever seen. Its quite hilarious. The best bit was when I realised how bad it was and found out how to reset the tab ordering in design view. Chuckling in a maniacal manner, I clicked like crazy...hooey. I'm sure there's a site somewhere that takes code like this, and exhibits it as a warning to others.

2002-08-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

Read 'Veronika decides to die' over the course of today. My only comment is that Paul Coelho is someone that you read when you are about 18 and think is fabulous (along with Herman Hesse). No more.

2002-08-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hadn't heard of this site before -urban legends.

As you would expect, fact is often stranger than fiction. My personal favourite, mainly because of the fact the birds didn't do anything with the money afterwards :)). If I was being wanky I'd say that it's a bit like that artist that destroyed all his possessions, or the KLF and their infamous money burning episode.

2002-08-06T02:46:00.000-07:00

Another blog girl hacker.

Did I mention before how good the Nights Dawn trilogy by Peter
Hamilton is? Well if I did, I'll say it again. Probably the most
satisfying set of books I've read in a long time. 1200 pages each of
very dense small writing so not for the slow of eye. About right for
me as I eat books. If they last longer than a weekend I am happy.
Anyway, very very good. And yes, I did want to shag Captain Joshua Calvert, but
hey who wouldn't...

Quite into the 'hard' sci-fi thing right now,helped by friend with very large library of books.
Also read some Alistair Reynolds, most people seem to prefer Chasm City, but I liked Revelation Space,
the main character is a Russian descendant woman who is a weapons expert and a loner. Sounds kinda contrived,
fit a woman into the typical mans role, but I think it works.

2002-08-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

The filthy critic...

Ranting is so cathartic..even other people's ranting.

2002-08-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

links from the old reg.

My favourite is Andys computer, the fifth pic down. How cool would that be, the biggest bubble wrap in the world..

2002-08-02T04:25:00.000-07:00

Doing C# at last. Nice to learn new language. And very nice to use VS.net instead of jbuilder...

think i'm gonna be trying pair programming soon, interested, but a bit worried by 'tandem bike, is the guy at the back pedalling'?

2002-08-02T04:19:00.000-07:00

and link of the day...living up to his name...

The comments remind me a bit of Henry Raddick as mentioned in abstractplain.

2002-08-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

out ---

2002-08-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

been a while. Lots been happening. In the meantime..:)

2002-07-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

A great quote I found today. Mind over matter eh..

How Do We Know Quarks Are Real?

A question you might well ask! [..] The answer is simply that all our calculations depend on their existence and give the right answers for the experiments.

2002-07-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

Was watching Bod and Friends with my little nephew on Saturday. It was really cool for lots of reason, but I love the fact there are all these fancy kiddies cartoons now that are probably quite expensive to make, and kids still want to watch bod. All the little learning things are so cute and gawky. John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Wilson from Dad's army), who I have always thought had very nice voice, does some narrating too.

Found a site with some .wavs, I've been humming Postman Frank's tune since Sat. doo root nnn didi do do roo do roo...

2002-07-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

the more observant may have noticed my blog name. yah, I like origami, especially stuff you can impress your friends with in the pub...

I was recently bought a book on star trek origami, and nearly blew a fuse trying to make the Klingon bird of prey. I think I am geeky enough to be really into stuff thats clever and precise, like origami, code, photography, etc but when I do it myself I lose concentration. Hence on getting to the point where you do those last incey-wincey tweaky bits, I tend to say 'fuckit', and just kind of mash it into a recognisably approximate shape.. The analogy de ma vie, je pense...

2002-07-23T02:40:00.000-07:00

I can't remember how I got this. But its fab. Fly around the solar system, and you can download new bits of code for cheeky things like that asteroid that nearly hit earth during the World Cup. Even God/Allah/Yahweh/whatever likes to bury bad news eh..

2002-07-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

I am a Viking! Mr. S is great, or should I say was. I showed my friend this site, and she said was at some town fair somewhere, and Jon Pall was there lifting up kids and running along with them or something. I saw on popbitch that Geoff Capes did that for a while too. Quite sad really. Listen to the soundbites though!

2002-07-22T04:39:00.000-07:00

got called a 'modern day, dotcom, real ale chick' by my man yesterday. The context was he'd bought me a pint of theakston's old peculiar, and I remarked that yes, it was peculiar and not particularly nice. He said 'What!, I thought you where supposed to be a modern day, dotcom, real ale chick!'. I am, just with a bit of discrimination..

2002-07-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Was thinking yesterday that Velvet Underground's song Pale Blue Eyes was nice. But then I started thinking that it was like somebody eating fish eyes and smacking their lips. The lyric is 'linger on your pale blue eyes".
However this may have been due to a conversation previously that day about diseases that Abraham Lincoln may or may not have had. (bear with me). He did have Marfan's Syndrome, which makes you lanky and short-sighted, so I thought I had it. Anyway, someone also told me he had Phenylketoneuria. Which he didn't, but (coming to the point now), after scrolling down the page the question 'doesn't that sickle cell look uncannily like a fish?' arose.
It has now been named Sick Fish Syndrome, in my own personal hypochondriacal catalogue of interesting illnesses. And hence, the lessening of my enjoyment of that particular song. (hooof - that should have scared off the last of those moths...)

2002-07-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

at work and no joke - a little moth just flew out of my keyboard..