Do you ever have those books that you read as a kid and vaguely remember the plot of, but can’t for the life of you remember what it was called? Well, the Brainy Snail and myself had a joint one back in Liverpool. The description went something as follows:

There’s this boy, he goes to live with this old woman (I think) in a this massive, tumbledown house somewhere in the country. He has adventures with ghosts…

Not exactly something you can type into Google, right?
Well, two years later, we finally have the answer thanks to a random conversation at an archaeology conference (I’d like to bet that the actual conversation took place down the pub. That’s how these conferences really work in my experience).
Courtesy of Random Cambridge Archaeologist and the Brainy Snail, I bring you “The Children of Green Knowe” by L. M. Boston.
Now all that remains is for me to smile sweetly at Curly Durly and get her to rummage through the boxes of books in the Homestead attic to find my old copy. It would be easier just to order it from Amazon, but much less fun 😉

Any one else got any books they vaguely remember? Let’s see if we can leverage the wonderful power of the Internet to find them for us. I also have this film that’s been bugging me for years now: 12(ish) year old boy finds out there really are monsters living under the bed – well, the entrance to their world is under the bed. Can’t remember if the monsters were evil or good (though I am leaning toward good in a naughty kind of way). That’s it. Oh, and this movie has so scarred me so badly that to this day I can’t fall asleep if my hand is dangling over the side of the bed.

Because it hurts like crap but is so easy to prevent, some pointers on how to avoid RSI. Listen to what this woman has to say. You will be saving yourself a LOT of pain and anguish in the long run.

I’m starting to get itchy feet regarding Bright Meadow’s design – I haven’t tweaked it in a while, and I know it isn’t as good as it could be. It’s rather timely, therefore, that Paul is still doing his Customizing K2 series. Even if you don’t have WordPress, this particular post has some good pointers regarding extraneous javascripts and loading things from external servers.

I missed the actual announcement, but it doesn’t surprise me to hear that the FDA denies that medical marijuana helps patients. Whilst I am against recreational drug use, I have seen first hand the relief marijuana gave people dying from cancer when prescription drugs were failing them. I’m with danah on this one – it’s time it was made legal for medicinal purposes.

Until Friday, I wasn’t even aware that the UK didn’t have its own astronauts. Now I know, I think it is silly. We should have astronauts, if only so I can live out my dream of becoming a Xenoarchaeologist! (Yes, I read too much sci-fi).

Genetics and stress are found linked to CFS – see, even more evidence supporting the “we’re not making it up, we really are sick” camp.

Sumeet has this great meme: 50 Greatest Book to Film Adaptations. Get the list, see how many of the books and/or films you’ve read/watched.
Here’s mine:
[b] – Read the book
[m] – Seen the movie
[bm] – Both

1. [b] 1984
2. [b] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. [m] Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Brighton Rock
6. [b] Catch 22
7. [bm] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. [b] The Day of the Triffids
11. Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [bm] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [bm] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. Doctor Zhivago
15. Empire of the Sun
16. [bm] The English Patient
17. [m] Fight Club
18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
19. [m] Get Shorty
20. [m] The Godfather
21. [m] Goldfinger
22. [m] Goodfellas
23. [b] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. [bm] The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [m] Jaws
26. [bm] The Jungle Book
27. [bm] A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. LA Confidential
29. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. Lolita
31. [b] Lord of the Flies
32. [bm] The Maltese Falcon
33. [bm] Oliver Twist
34. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
35. Orlando
36. The Outsiders
37. [bm] Pride and Prejudice
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. [bm] The Railway Children
40. [bm] Rebecca
41. [bm] The Remains of the Day
42. [bm] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
43. [m] Sin City
44. [b] The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. [m] The Talented Mr Ripley
46. [b] Tess of the D’Urbervilles
47. [b] Through a Glass Darkly
48. [bm] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. [m] Trainspotting
50. The Vanishing
51. [b] Watership Down

And for the CC, a wireless Guitar Hero controller.