Right, out of sympathy for y’all having to read a 2,500 word post ^*1* I have held off blogging for the last couple of days. Also, I had nothing to say. The afore mentioned rant kinda sapped my desire to write for a while. Which sucks when you think of the thesis I should be writing.

But it is now Sunday, I don’t want to read about wikis any more, so here are a few of the things that have been accumulating in my ‘random’ bookmarks folder.

I enjoy am obsessed by cups of tea. I am not joking when I say that without them I would not be able to function. It is a well documented phenomenon. A good portion of the month we were in Malaysia was spent trying to find me a decent cup of tea^*2*. So when I stumbled across the H2G2 entry for tea written by (among others, Douglas Adams himself) in the course of my research, I was rather chuffed. The animation is rather groovy, if annoyingly looped to infinity. NB – I do not share DNA’s belief that Earl Grey is the best tea that money can buy. The man was wrong. But he is sadly dead now, and wrote some truly wonderful radio shows, books, articles, and films, so I won’t hold it against him. Much. George Orwell also had some strong views on tea. If you are interested, I subscribe to the milk-first school. Just tastes better as far as I am concerned.

Sleep is good. Sleep is my friend. I have been known to sleep through all manner of things that would wake most mere mortals. My father’s snoring for one! The reverberations that can be set up when inside a 50ft long, 6ft 6inch wide metal hulled boat by a 58 y ear old man have to be experienced to be believed. I have also broken a fair few alarm clocks in my time in an effort to shut them up and get more sleep, so the idea of an alarm clock that runs away from you is just supreme! And furry to boot.

No idea why you would need the ultimate guide to shooting rubber bands, but it kept me amused for a while. This is one classroom skill I never quite got the hang off, and I have to admit that I never thought so much went into it! Perhaps that is where I have been going wrong all these years. Now I have longer hair again, be warned – I am going to be supplied with hairbands within easy reach – AMMO!!!!!

Free science fiction is always good, but is normally in the form of slightly dog-earred books you’ve got from the library. I am a fan of libraries. Libraries are great. But they always seem to only ever have the middle two books in a series. Or books one, two, three, but not four where everything goes down. Very annoying. Which is why the Baen Free Library is such a good idea. Liking it, liking it alot. I would always recommend buying the physical copy of a book, but this is a good service if you want to see if you like a series, can’t get hold of book one any other way, or just live somewhere where you don’t have access to a library with a large SF section.

Dan Brown is getting everywhere these days, like a nasty persistent rash that nothing your GP does can cure. He even looks slimy. And his evil influence has even affected Kathy Reichs in her new book! Oh, the humanity!

You might remember that the other week I threatened my SLR with the repair-man and it started to work, so I finally managed to finish the film that was in it and go get it developed. Well, I got the pictures back, and it turns out that most of them were of the trip the Crazy Canalman and myself took into Little Venice a couple of years ago in order to see “We Will Rock You” (amazing show!) It was an odd trip. Have a look at some of the better pictures (I spent £7 getting the bloody things developed, so I’m going to share!) Flickr Photo Set of Little Venice Trip

And ending on a sad note, Robin Cook dies. Whilst not supporting all of his political and personal decisions, I feel on balance he was one of the good ones.

*edit*
Added some reviews over at Dark Meadow

I’m not sure quite when these posts came more about what I found on the Internet lately rather than my thoughts etc, but I am detecting a definite trend here. Also not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but it’s happening, and I feel like going with the flow (so to speak, awful phrase, but my mind is elsewhere, so it will have to do).

The latest digest for you:

Ok, so watch this demo for the TactaPad and then tell me the possibilities didn’t give you goosebumps. Can’t do it? Good. Just imagine this degree of control over the entire comptuer. Goosebumps, no?

Be excited. Be very excited. V For Vendetta.

Well, it’s got some swooshy-coat action if nothing else. I am a Matthew Macfadyen fan as well, especially when he is looking all nice and disheveled. I am a little concerned that they seem to have raunched the story up slightly (longing looks/going in for the kiss is so not traditional Austen darling!). And it’s going to have to go some to meet the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle/BBC production of a few years back, but here’s hoping! Pride & Prejudice

(click for bigger)

THIS is not a robot. It is a Japanese lady sitting very still. Well, the alternative is just too freaky to think about!

RSI is a pain in all senses of the word, trust me on this. This Keyboard though looks just a leetle bit serious for me. And expensive. Don’t forget expensive.

Oddly named. Oddly compelling. The Chumscrubber. (We’ll ignore for now that it contains about 50 of my favourite actors!)

If you do nothing else that I recommend, go to David Pogue’s thing about Podcasting on the NYT and watch the video you find on the left hand side entitled “David Pogue on Podcasting”. The first half is all serious. The second half, just surreal. I made the mistake of watching it whilst eating my breakfast this morning. I then had to spend five minutes hoovering the toast-crumbs from my keyboard, I was laughing so much. Then give yourself a treat and watch some of his other videos… (including the iPod flea…)

I have brought you all manner of wooden computers and accessories in the past. Now, I bring you (drum roll please) the Wooden Ferrari F50. Yep, that’s right, a wooden Ferrari. No, I don’t know why you’d want one either, but the picture looks kinda cool.

The NYT is always good for a laugh. Read the Stealth review and have a good giggle. “an interminably snotty hotel clerk right before the phone bounces off his head” indeed… Though I do still want to watch the film. Let me clarify in case you are concerned that my recent sojurn in the wilds of Somerset has done something to my taste. I look forward to this movie for it promises to be that rarest of rare thing, the genuinely funny bad film. Hopefully hilarity will insue. That, and Josh Lucas in a swimsuit? What more does a girl need?

Nothing like a good bit of time paradox to get the blood thumping: A Sound of Thunder

And finally, some good news with regards people power – I am not sure if anyone other than me subscribes to RSS feeds with any regularity [You should by the way, they’re useful] so the following might not be a thing for you, but I have one issue with the NYT feeds, and it is this. On the movie reviews, they don’t tell you what movie the review is about! Meaning you have to go to the website anyway, which kinda defeats some of the purpose of an RSS feed. Well, I finally got narked enough to send them an email (this was a couple of weeks back now). And this morning I got a very lovely email from Joan Taylor of the NYT Customer Service saying they were looking into it and to expect a change soon. Feedback is good people, it really is. If something narks you, or you love something, let the appropriate people know. There are few things more depressing than sitting staring at your computer screen muttering obscenities because it doesn’t work the way you expect it to. If you never speak up in this life, well, you have no right to complain when things don’t turn out as you thought they would.

Well, what is there to say in the (what is becoming) traditional weekly roundup of odd things that I forgot to tell you throughout the rest of the week?

On Friday night, Jo and myself took ourselves off to the circus. For the Moscow State Circus was in town, they offered a student discount, and it would have been silly not to go. So, go we did. And much fun was had. I wanted to have “Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!” as the title, but the Moscow State is a people-circus, not an animal-circus, so it wouldn’t have worked. We sat in the cheapest-but-one seats (hell-oooo, student = cheapskate), not the most comfortable seats around, but the view wasn’t bad. Tip: never ever sit ring-side at the Moscow State Circus. These clowns come out between acts to keep people entertained whilst they take down/set up, and are mildly amusing. I don’t normally laugh at clowns, as I tend more toward the school of thought that finds clowns just plain creepy, but these guys weren’t bad. Anyway, the problem with sitting ringside, is that you are then within grabbing distance of the clowns. They can, and will pull you up into the ring with them. Much hilarity ensued. Always fun laughing at someone else’s humiliation! The best bit of the evening: by far, the strong man. They DROVE A FRICKING HUGE 4X4 OVER THE GUY!!! Yes, you read that correctly. Average looking slavic gentleman. Muscly, but not gorilla like. He lies down on the ground. Assistants 1 & 2 place a wooden board on his chest, then lay two tracks over the board. Assistant 3 revs the engine of a LARGE jeep grand cheroke (I am pretty certain that was the make. It was a Jeep and large anyway). Assistant 3 then drives up the tracks, over the man, and down the other side. Had to be seen to be believed. I am not ashamed to admit I was watching through my fingers. I could NOT believe that they really did that!

Films seen this month:
At the cinema:
Sahara, The Interpreter, Blade Trinity, Wedding Date.
On DVD:
Welcome to Collinwood, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Chasing Amy, Peter Pan, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Timeline, Equilibrium, Enduring Love, Around the World in 80 Days.

I got divebombed by a pigeon when I was out shopping the other day. I am resisting the temptation to add pigeons to my list of evil animals. Penguins are evil, we have already established that. Pigeons on the other hand are just nasty, smell, disease-laden pests, who serve no purpose that I can see. We even have a warning posted in our kitchen not to feed the pigeons, or to leave our windows open when we aren’t in the rooms, because the pigeons can, and more importantly will, enter our rooms, defecate all over the floor and furniture, and generally be a pain in the unmentionables. When I started this blog, I honestly didn’t think I would be talking about the possibility of members of the local fauna going to the toilet in my room, but the fact that I just have, goes to show that you never can tell.

The observant ones among you might have noticed the little white banner across the top left corner of the page. I bought one of the bands the other day in Oxfam, put it on, and then felt smugly superior for the rest of the morning, because I had “done my bit”. I then realised that I was basically being a total arse, because I had spent £1 on a bracelet, gone on to spend ten times that in the supermarket, and still felt superior when there were people out there starving. So I come home, log on to the Make Poverty History website and discover that they do these groovy little banners for websites. To quote the slightly cheesy line from the American site “We’re not asking for your money, we’re asking for your voice”. There are a grand total of three charities who, to date, get my time and money when I have some to spare:
Cancer & Leukemia In Childhood
the Bone Marrow Register
Cancer Research UK – more about them in a few weeks.
And now there is a fourth.

On a lighter note, the best of the rest:

1. I have it on good authority, that Tom Cruise’s real name is Derek, and that Will Ferrell is a bad kisser.
2. “We had to do a bit of pretending to get slapped in a Welsh quarry, but who hasn’t?” – Martin Freeman, H2G2 interview.
3. (talking of Bill Nighy) – “he is possibly the only person to have quit [smoking] because of vampirism.”
4. My umbrella’s-against-rain campaign is holding up. Go for fieldwork on Tuesday, get soaked walking up to campus. Fieldwork was cancelled due to the bad weather (apparently electronic surveying equipment doesn’t work well in the rain, duh!). Get soaked walking home. Get changed into dry clothes and eat lunch. Go back up to campus for an afternoon lecture. Buggered if I was going to get wet again so I took an umbrella (it looked like it could rain any moment), and the sun shone so brightly, I needed shades. The next day, I again lugged my gigantic golfing umbrella into uni because the sky looked threatening, and there wasn’t a drop of rain to be seen all day. Thursday evening, we walk into town to rent a video, I don’t take the umbrella, and it pisses it down all the way home.