My site has been updated and the modified design with added extra PHP and XHTML beneath the hood are firing on all cylinders (that’s what’s called an extended metaphor, kids.)
No doubt there are small flaws but I’ve checked out most things, I know at least one page doesn’t work, but it’s a hidden one anyway.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled doldrums.
I’m currently about halfway through listening to the new Radiohead album, which has, as ever, been leaked onto the Internet. I’m having my usual reaction to a new Radiohead album at the moment, I get the feeling that all the songs are alright but it’s going to take me a while to actually decide which I like and which I don’t. Having said that, “Backdrifts” has destroyed my fragile tiny mind with its goodness.
The style of this album is all over the place, you can hear Amnesiac in there strongly, but also Kid Am OKC and the Bends at various. In fact, the song I’m listening to right now (Track 5, “Go To Sleep”) is practically straight off The Bends.
Anyway, I’m going to go back to listening now. Perhaps more on it later.
As a short aside, it seems that the server will remain on GMT (which is fair enough) so I have informed it that I am an hour ahead of its timezone and posts are now correctly timestamped.
Where does the time go? I mean seriously, about half an hour ago I had almost 2 hours to work on my webpage, I finished a couple of things, look up and to my astonishment I suddenly had half an hour. I’m not sure where the time went, but I’m anxious to get it back and catch up. At least good old internet time doesn’t change. Of course, what I’m going on about probably makes little sense, as looking at the timestamp for this entry, it’s still using GMT. When BST started under 30 minutes ago, so add an hour onto the timestamp and you’ll see what I mean. I should look into that actually, see if making things BST is my responsibility or the server’s.
It occurs to me that being born during BST means that it’s possible to die having gained an extra hour. The clocks go back in autumn, you live the same hour twice, and if you die before BST starts again you have that whole hour twice, gratis!
Of course, anyone reading this who was born under GMT must fast the awful truth that the best they can hope to do is break even. Should they die during BST they’ll have been cheated out of a whole hour of their lives. Take solace in the fact that your sacrifice allows the temporal mechanics to average out at the end, and that when all is said and done the population will average out corrently and the numbers will add up.
So, confusion aside. Today I went to the Leamington Record fair. It’s generally worth attending, but this time it was quite crap. I had almost given up the hope of finding anything, but I managed to get a Wide Open Space single for Nikki’s Mansun collection, so it wasn’t a complete loss. I spent almost as much time in the record fair as I did trying to park, though. I mean Jesus christ, I don’t remember it being that hard. Afterwards, I went to Stratford for my comics. They’ve revamped the parking in Stratford too - drastically fewer spaces are now available. Bastards. Still. Got the comics, so I can live with the situation. For now. Finally, just to tie those two ideas together fully, I plan to go to the Stratford Record Fair on bank holiday monday, which is huge and can’t fail to have something worth buying.
Yesterday I bought the necessary network cable and set up the conputer system in here. Some of the cable set ups would make you wince, but now data flows through the network cables like blood through in the veins of the house and everyone has their internet connection set up (Though, I actually haven’t set Mum’s PC up with it yet). Frustrating as it was to get things sorted, I admit it was also a bit of fun. A worthwhile pursuit of time, anyway.
Well, that about wraps it up for what I’m doing now. I’m trying to think of a decent idea for a comic since Marvel are going to accept unsolicited scripts in an active bid to get new writers and artists under their “Epic” imprint, so if I ever wanted the chance to write a comic, now is basically my best shot. I guess I have a couple of weeks at least to work on things, so who knows what’ll turn up.
Okay, I’m back from Oxford for a grand total of roughly 4 weeks. I travelled relatively light this time and I’ve actually got a bit of room to move. Tomorrow I’m going to sort out the LAN internet connection and stuff (I’m using a modem at the moment) and possibly go get my comics from Stratford. Then who knows, the world is my oyster.
Or possibly frog:
Can you spot it? Note the huge patch of dead grass where a fence panel fell and we left it for a few months. We did try to get it picked up by the handymen but rather than staring at it and saying “Hmm. Don’t know much about fences.” they just outright refused to do anytihng about it because it’s apparantly the neighbour’s fence. Tom and I moved it a couple of weeks ago. The grass should grow back. Probably. But enough of this tangent, here’s what the point of this really was:
The wildlife entering our house knows no bounds. Admittedly, this one didn’t actually get inside the house, but it’s also a damn site more interesting than the slugs or a cat. I attempted to get some action shots but it’s a bit hard, because it takes 2 seconds for the camera to register once you press the button and it takes about half that time for a frog to jump, and given that I’m not precognitive (yet) I managed to get loads of pictures of a frog immediately after jumping, so it was a bit of a lost cause.
A mere 9 hours until my last exam of this term. Then presumably, not long until I go home. I have things to consider for, my return but right now my main concern is where to put my computer when I get home! I have a devious plan to allow maximum capability for all PCs concerned involving my most horribly useful router. BWAHAHAHA!
Hmm. There’s not a lot to talk about really. Just winding down the fast and crazy (and expensive) Oxford lifestyle in favour of the more relaxed pace of Leamington. I have loose plans to go to Saturday’s record fair, get a carvery with the local friends, and meet up with Sam “Cornwall” Bateman, the prodigal son who has moved back to the town that made him who he was. It’s strange to think of how much has changed since he left exactly 3 years ago (Easter 2000). I have the car, Nikki, about 12 inches of extra hair and an exciting new obsession in the form of Transformers. Given that the outward changes we have all partaken of (Most radically, Josh has lost his spiked hair) I can’t help but wonder if Sam will be any different. I am prepared for the worst - Nu-Metal goatees, facial piercings and a shaven head. Anything less than that will be no surprise.
Anyway. I suppose I should go to sleep now, in preparation round off the exam season (at least, until retakes…)
A photo of our aptly named student newspaper:
This isn’t exactly an isolated incident either. Every page of this “newspaper” is riddled with spelling errors, and their formatting (and now that I think about it, grammar) isn’t too hot either. Indeed, on the front page they manage to use “Oxford Brookes Peace Network” as a singular and collective noun within two sentences…
If I didn’t know better, I’d say they didn’t have a spellchecker. Or proofreader. Or English as a first language. Or second language.
Okay, technically this isn’t slugs, but I thought it’s provide more of an insight into what goes on with regards to the wildlife in this house.
This cat regularly comes inside and claims the place as its own. It’s not a stray, but it must spend very little time with its masters. Perhaps the previous owners of the house fed it or something. On this occasion, we were alerted to the feline intrusion when I heard meowing which interrupted my revision. I turned round and the cat was trying to push open the bedroom door. Nikki and I herded it into the kitchen, and she took a photo of it. That’s my foot there.
Anyway, we got the thing out the back door, and just before I closed it out I took the second photo.
That’s our recycling thing there, so graciously provided by the council of Oxford.
I konw some of you will be upset that there were no more slugs to photograph, but just as many are happy to have new photos of the fluffy cat, having had to stare at disgusting slugs for weeks. Next update will no doubt be back to our normally scheduled filth.
It occurs to me that, statistically, there’s a good chance the time is going to come when a small child walks up to his mother, sits on her lap and asks “Mom, how did dad die?” and she’s going to have to look him in the eye, fight back the tears and say “He crashed his helicopter into another while bravely protecting this country.”
The kid will look back, and say “Was he killed by Iraqis before they became extinct?”
And the mother’s going to sigh, stare off into the middle distance and say “Actually, they were just taking off on a routine mission but crashed into another helicopter. They probably weren’t 500 metres from base. Still, at least it was actually during a war rather than on a military exercise else I’d have changed my name to avoid the embarassment.”
I am bemused to think that the coalition forces have managed to lose a Chinook, 2 Sea-Kings and around 20 troops solely through crashing their own helicopters. It wouldn’t surprise me if the 2 reported killed marines were shot by their own side as well.
EDIT: 12:33 pm
And today I wake up to discover that US missiles have accidently shot down an RAF plane returning from a mission. With each passing day of war comes a new hilarious mistake. It’s also reported that the missing ITN reporter was actually under “friendly fire” when he went missing, which means, again, he was being shot at by our own side. Two more marks in the “against” column, making us 4 down before considering that the Iraqis have even fired a shot.
Expect the next 6 days to be thin on the ground with updates, for I am about to be deluged with the first of many exams. Yes, in a mere 8 and a half hours I’ll be sitting my first of 3×2 hours exams. My knowledge will be tested and my worthiness gauged. On a Saturday. AGAIN. I’m not sure what it is with the computing schedulers, but they certainly seem to ensure we get the short end of the stick for exam times…
This exam is Information Systems. For those of you interested in what I do for the 9 hours a week I’m not in front of the PC, Information Systems is part of it. IS involves the construction of hundreds of diagrams containing everything you need to know about a system. The purpose of these diagrams is unclear. You’re supposed to program things from them, but frankly I can’t imagine that anyone actually does. They’re bureaucracy in diagram form. I doubt the creators of any of the world’s top software ever went near the formalised versions of the damned things. Information Systems gives a name to things you already know in an attempt to make itself look clever.
If Sociology were Computing, it would be Information Systems.
Have I adequately portrayed how much I don’t think IS is in any way a useful thing to know? Once this module is over, I’ll be glad to forget everything I’ve “learnt” in it. And I use the term generously.
In other news, I’ve been raking in the cash from eBay. I say “raking”, between flogging a spare transformer and some spare DivX CDs I’ve made about £30 so far, which I’m pretty pleased with, and I have money for some comics yet to come.
Today, my comics arrived from Reed Comics - an excellent online dealer who have been supplying some of my comics needs every so often. I bought a collected reprint edition of “Ultimate Spider-Man” which I had, up until now, avoided buying. Partially because I have objections to the “ultimisation” of the marvel universe, and partly because if it’s as good as people have been saying, I didn’t want to shell out the extra couple of quid a month for it. Well, it’s good. Really good. The art is great and the writing is great, and it’s in the traditional Spider-Man style. It’s got me interested in ways the in-continuity version hasn’t for decades. Luckily, it’s also collected in volume upon volume of graphic novel, so I think rather than going monthly, I’ll slowly start buying up those.
Finally, I say again that the website updating is going well. I converted and rewrote another page last night, and for those anxious to see the new design live (like there’is anyone…) I can confirm I’m going to finish it over Easter. I swear.
In this time of international unrest, where the facts are obscured by several layers of political bullshit, it’s worth me bringing to the attention of everyone who may not know of it, the excellent news site Indymedia.
The BBC World Service it ain’t.
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