June 27, 2003  

step two: hit thumb 26 june 2003

One of my coworkers bought his newborn baby into work the other day for about twenty minutes. 'E's a cute wee bugger - the baby, that is, not the coworker. I got to hold the wee mite, which marks a slight milestone in that it's the first time I've ever held a baby. Everyone's always told me it's like holding a puppy, but I disagree - you don't need to support a puppy's head as much. Ands puppies wiggle more. And they don't wear nappies. Anyway, I managed to hold young Aidan without any problems at all, and we even got a couple of photos of me holding him. Awww.

This is, I should point out, the same co-worker who sings his infant son to sleep. Sounds OK, right up until the point where he reveals that he spurns the conventional choice of nursery rhymes, old folk songs, etc. No, he holds the infant in his arms, gently rocks it, and quietly croons Eminem. I'll give him this, he does change some of the words.

How to put together a bike using only a box full of spare parts, the wrong tools, and a lot of beer. Or: a realistic article about bicycle maintenance:

First job was to render the Claud's wheels sprocketless. Nine Years/No Lube - a simple couplet that doesn't begin to describe the man versus cassette competition spanning three hours with full accompaniment of gurning, hyperventilating, swearing and frequent application of the big hammer... Notice in the picture the large hammer which featured heavily in the final round of the bout and lead to eventual triumph. I punched the air before lapping the room, lockring raised triumphantly above my head chanting, "You never had a chance you little fucker," whilst Nick got on with the more technical tasks

More Beers Than Gears by Al Leigh.

Today's Guardian has a fascinating article about the forensic research facility in the US nicknamed "the body farm": in the interests of forensic research, this facility leaves human bodies out to decay and then observes the process. Interesting, but quite gruesome. It's been name-checked in a number of US-based crime and detective novels - I'm fairly sure I recall it being mentioned in The Silence of the Lambs. The article also includes a section on use of cadavers in other research. Worth reading; it's an extract from a book, and I'm now quite interested to acquire a copy of the book.

June 24, 2003  

a bit sub-tool 23 june 2003

That wacky, zany J. K. Rowling, eh? She's got half the Christian loons in the US baying for her recruiting-little-innocent-kiddies-for-Satan blood, and what does she go and do? Only goes and releases her latest book on the solstice, that's what! The sheer release of energy from the resultant frenzy kicks in at a highly occultly significant point: Our Dark Satanic Master feeds well on the life-energy of the wee children, and her guilt is proved.

[Last word there should be pronounced "proh-vehd", by the way.]

And so, with her happy-go-lucky depictions of Cabbalistic depravity, Rowling ensnares the souls of our children in her Master's evil web. A life of atheistic Satanism (eh?), rampant physical excess, and general turning-from-the-one-true-path now lies inexorably before them. Still, at least it's getting the buggers reading.

For the record, I rather enjoyed ...Order of the Phoenix. Lot nastier than the earlier ones (including a few frankly disturbing sequences that I imagine some of the younger kids would have problems with), lots of teen angst, a certain amount of snogging, and various near-death experiences. As Rowling had dropped the hint that a major character would die, a number of the characters had close calls. The frequency of these increased throughout the book, whipping the reader into a frenzy. I nearly found myself crying "Oh, fucksake, just kill someone!" - which would have been a bit embarrassing, as I was reading it in the back garden.

Oh, and the rumours that Hagrid had been signed to play for Real Madrid: totally false, dude.

Had the most illustrious Jared & Sharyn down here over t'weekend, which was very nice. Many good conversations, some tapas, and a lot of sitting around laughing. Good stuff all around, really.

Although I don't actually say anything much about poppies, the title of this site (together with the presence of a gardening page, which needs updating) means that my highest ranking search term is usually "poppy plants" (though, amusingly, I've also scored this month with "costume party in drag embarrassing", the grammatically correct but unlikely to get you what you want "matrices reloaded photos", and "bloody bugger motherfucker", which should amuse at least one of my coworkers). In this vein, I'm going to mention the wild poppies that we've got growing through our garden. Down one side of the lawn, we've got a good mass of herbs, clematis, sunflower seedlings and wild poppies. Many of the poppies have already flowered (although we've still got quite a few coming up), and we're starting to get harvests of seed. My god, those little suckers are prolific, aren't they? A single seed head (and each poppy has three or four) contains about 1cc of seed. And given the size of poppy seed (you've seen poppy seed buns, right?), that's pretty prolific. This speaks to me of us having a heck of a lot more poppies this time next year.

On the headphones: Playgroup's entry in the DJ Kicks series. Lots of simple early 80s beats. Yeah.

June 18, 2003  

we need bigger hooks 17 june 2003

We ended up spending the entire day on Sunday sitting around in the garden. It was where it was at, man. We got up, did the normal Sunday morning stuff (phone relatives, vacuumed the house, made brunch), then had a wee sit down in the garden for ten minutes. And then didn't get up. The day was sunny, the weather was warm, and the garden was growing apace. So we spent the day sunbathing, taking occasional dainty sips of appropriate refreshment (sangria, as we had no pimms), and reading. It's good to have the odd rest day. Especially as we'd biked to Ely and back for a barbie on the previous afternoon. A good weekend all around, then.

I note that Martyn now has a blog on Livejournal, and is giving it some moblogging action with the mad PDA stylee. Onward the personal publishing revolution!

Looks like a good warm-up for the Tour - Lance has just won the Dauphine Libre, pipping Iban Mayo by 1:12. David Millar came in third - good result for the British lad there, and hopefully he'll make a good showing in the Tour. Should be a cracker of a race this year: a lot of people are trying to stop Lance from getting up there with the big boys (Anquetil, Merckx (who turns 58 today, by the way), Hinault and Indurain) with five victories.

Related: Trek present Tour 101 - a good intro, including an excellent explanation of the leader's jerseys. Slightly tweaked for Americans, but with a minimum amount of corporate shilling.

Also related: go go Kashi Leuchs in the NORBA cross country series in the US. A very respectable third for the Kiwi lad there.

And while we're on the thopic of cycling: road cyclists are justifiably famous for their bright, garish team strips (not least in the form of Mario Cipollini's skinsuits). But this is an absolute stonker: the official team kit of Team Carlsbad/Jelly Belly official kit. They're sponsored, as you might expect, by Jelly Belly jelly beans. This is reflected in their team strip - which is, um, pretty striking.

There's a chance that Luke Vibert might be playing Cambridge. Specifically, he might be playing the Portland Arms. What? I'd have thought Luke Vibert would be able to pack out the Junction - or at least the Boat Race. The gig space at the Portland, much as I like it, is about 5x6m. Odd stuff, but if he's playing I'll line up for a ticket.

So far, three people have brought in sweet things to celebrate their birthdays. I'm loaded up on a big sugar rush. Sufficiently big that at least one of my coworkers has commnted that I'm bouncing off the walls. Woo and indeed hoo. And I'm installing new software. Life is good.

Oh yes, and we're heading home for Christmas. Details available on request, but if anyone can get us tickets for the premiere of the Return of the King at the Embassy (or, heck, any performance of it there) I'd be most appreciative.

June 13, 2003  

that one looks like a duck 11 june 2003

In the gym this morning, one of the hairier guys in the changing room was using the public hairdryer to dry his armpits. Is it just me, or is this a bit beyond the pale?

I would appear to be officially raddled. The other day, someone was trying to guess my age. They guessed 35. When I (slightly shocked) said "No", they guessed 37. So I officially look a decade older than I am. Personally, I think it's the beard. Maybe I should just buy some slippers and be done with it.

And probably the most quotable comment I've seen on the recent Beckham furore:

Much as it pains a feminist such as myself to say so, Beckham has been grotesquely, massively, pussy-whipped by his talentless, ambition-hound of a wife.

Julie Burchill [source]

That's officially the first-time I've seen the phrase "pussy-whipped" used by an English writer - heck, it's the first time I've seen it anywhere outside Peter Bagge's wonderful comic Hate.

Today's theme tune: There's No Home For You Here by the White Stripes. C'mon, it's Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground with a hat on. You know you love it.

And on other news: I like PDFs (most of the time). I don't think they're a good replacement for well-designed hypertext, but I think they're a nice compromise replacement for printed documentation that needs to be accessible online as well. So yeah, I like 'em. But from the look of this site, someone people take it to an inappropriately sexualised level.

June 12, 2003  

Bugger. Lisa just emailed to tell me that this site was her main referrer this week. I'll be damned. As she said, I'm now world-famous in Germany. Disclaimer: no earlobes were harmed in the taking of this photo.

Shite, there's another one. Pretty soon I'll be having to sign autographs.

 

sheep sheep sheep sheep 11 june 2003

Went to a rather good electronica gig at the Portland Arms the other night. The music was impressive. Andrew Coleman aka Animals on Wheels) gave a good live set. Stuck firmly in the "I'm sitting in front of my laptop not moving and for all you know I'm playing Solitaire" school of live electronica performance, he was distinguished by his extreme immobility. I mean, I've been to a few of these gigs, and the performer usually looks away from their laptop occasionally, y'know? The only time he moved was about thirty seconds before the end of his set, when he got up and walked out of the room while the music slowly ground to a halt behind him. One way to beat the rush to the bar, I suppose. The music itself was good stuff: lots of interestingly varied beats, only occasional deliberate (?) use of cacophony, and generally very pleasing to the ear.

Ulrich Schnauss was probably the highlight, however. Impressively layered soundscapes, using a variety of instrumentation - and actually playing a lot of it live, too. If anything, his soundscapes seemed a bit too full-on: it would have been nice to have had a few slightly more minimalist compositions. As was, it was very My Bloody Valentine meets Orbital; lots of layered distortion guitar and intermittant breaks. Very nice stuff, though. I remember thinking that it's the sort of thing you'd play to someone in a floatation tank if you wanted them to experience hallucinations of flying. And I've got a soft spot for any musician who starts their set by spraying WD40 on their mixing desk. "It sticks", he explained in a slightly embarrassed fashion.

Other feature of electronica gigs at the Portland is the slideshow. There's an old-style manual slide projector in a corner, projecting "arty" images onto the rear wall. It's operated by a rather earnest young lady, who didn't take to our group. This is probably because she recognised Chris from his last electronica gig at the Portland, where he and Jim were sufficiently drunk that they started cheering each time a new slide came on. Let's just say that we got some very hard looks throughout the evening. Despite not being drunk enough to cheer.

And the next day, Chris was sufficiently tired that he had to take the afternoon off to have a nap. Job's a good 'un.

Spent a fair bit of Saturday (post a hangover of my own, having gotten far, far too drunk at a party the night before) at Strawberry Fair. Good weather meant a good turnout: it was unwashed hippies as far as the eye could see. Well, a large contingent of 16-year-olds out to try and blag beers and buy rebellious t-shirts, a certain number of aging trustafarians, and a fair crowd of people who just liked wandering around showing off their tattoos. Naturally we fit right in. Good afternoon out - I got some more carnivorous plants at the Sarracenia Nurseries stall (always a winner!), lots of sunshine, met some very nice people, etc. One thing that slightly did my head in was the sheer preponderance of legal drugs stalls. I'll clarify that. Usually these stalls are basically flogging snake oil - "herbal high"-in-a-bottle, grow-your-own-shroom kits, ancient knowledge of the aztec high priests, etc: your average placebo effect drugs for daring adolescents. This year, every man jack of 'em was flogging Salvia divinorum, aka Diviner's Sage. Now, having just finished Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head, I'm reasonably familiar with the putative effects of S. divinorum. It's basically a reasonably full-on psychoactive: you reach out and lick the face of God. And it was selling like hot cakes. So suddenly serious hallucinogens are back in fashion. One stall was offering free hits from a pipe of the stuff; not quite my idea of responsible salesmanship. I guess I'm just bemused that "the kids" are flocking to a serious "out of yer nut" drug rather than something comparatively mild like dope (or, heck, cider).

I give it six months until the media panic sets in, another six months until it's banned. I can see the Daily Mail headlines now.

Only a few more weeks now. And thus, the Guardian on A Cheat's Guide to the Tour de France.

Why I like my LBS: "Here you go - try this one. If it fits, it's £1.80. If it doesn't, bring it back." Ah, trust.

And as a triumvirate of biking bits: interview with a custom framebuilder. Interesting stuff, although a bid spod-y.

June 06, 2003  

fallacy of reification 5 june 2003

There's a great yearning for versimilitude in the human psyche. And schadenfraude. People want to see real things happen to real people. Ideally, bad things happening to real people who deserve them. This manifests itself in many ways; at the moment, it's most visible in the parade of reality TV. The schedules are crammed with shows about people who sin, and who are then mocked mercilessly. Occasionally, this is in order that the people may see the error of their ways and become righteous. Thus, we have shows where people's dress sense is mocked, and they are then told how to dress like everyone else. We have shows where people are laughed at for being unmannered, and they are then taught which spoon one uses when dining with a duke. And we have shows where they just lock a load of idiots in a house for 10 weeks and mercilessly mock, belittle and crucify them in the popular press.

The latest addition to this parade of "we're really helping you, not just being nasty to get ratings" telly has the basic plot: some people are unclean. We must delicately wince at their uncleanliness, while empowering them to sterilise their living spaces. This is lorded over by an imposing pair of women wearing outfits that blend scientific objectivity with a certain degree of ... well, tightness. The boarding school matron as sex symbol is alive and well. Motherly figures dispensing dettol and stern warnings? Rubber gloves, tight white coats: the cleanliness/filth dichotomy is comprehensibly fetishised. We've all been very naughty, dirty children, and must be treated sternly. And the public laps it up. It's dominacleaning. Sanitrices. Cleanliness is the new muck. We like it mucky. Scrub it till it bleeds.

Fuck sterility.

We need a healing inoculation of grime, to borrow a phrase. Overdue concern with sanitation: the lady doth protest too much. A certain degree of dirt is required. Squalor is out, but so's sterility. I don't want to live in an Ikea ad, all gleaming white surfaces: I like a slightly worn in feel. Life is not clean.

Ignore me, I'm just depressed at the depths that UK reality telly is sinking to. And, more to the point, the fact that it's racking up impressive viewing stats.

We have a new receptionist. This morning, we got an email with the title: "food trolling in reception". No, we don't know what it means either.

Looks like Red Ken is in negotiations at the moment to bring the 2003 Tour de France to London. Bloody good idea if you ask me: it'd be incredibly popular. Last time, in 1994, literally millions of people turned up to watch the UK stages. Heck, I'd be there with bells on. Related: Observer article on the history of the Tour - bit short, and misses out some of the best bits, but it's a good toe in the water if you're wondering what all the bloody fuss is about.

archives