…This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. (Jef Raskin)

Which is my way of saying: ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I loath computers with a firey firey passion, and wish that we all still did things with pen, paper, and an abacus. No, that’s still too high tech. I want us to go back to drawing on the walls of our caves with bits of charcoal. That’s it. Nothing more than stone and charcoal.

Not a good day in the lab. It was working sweet for five minutes, then all hell broke loose. Sob. To have a wiki and to loose it is surely worse than never to have a wiki at all.

🙁

Other than that, Happy Solstice Everyone!
Today is the first solstice in a while I haven’t been in Glastonbury, so I hadn’t tweaked what date it was till I read a news story this evening about the gathering at Stonehenge. Normally, I’m walking down the highstreet, and by the time three or four random people have tried to hug me, I’ve realised what day it is. Seriously – random strangers flinging themselves at me. Alas, if you know Glastonbury at all, you’ll understand why this isn’t an all together joyous event. Those doing the flinging tend to be of the hippy/traveller/not-washed-in-a-week variety. Still, the sentiment is nice, and everyone is happy around solstice times. People don’t do that in Southampton. There is a distinct lack of flinging going on.

Big Brother till 2007 – oh dear lord no! Isn’t it enough that BB was lampooned in Dr Who just the other week? [Perfect example of life mirroring Sci-Fi] Must the insanity continue?

I like my tea, so when I saw this story about Tregothnan Tea, I got all excited, but a little skeptical at the same time. It’s taken the Chinese thousands of years to grow drinkable tea. These guys have been doing it seven years. Also, a little expensive for me. If anyone wants to send me a nice gift of some though, I wouldn’t say no…

These are actually pretty shiny! Tech jewelry. Purdy jewelry.

That’s it. I am off to go and do something else. Not sure what. Just know that it won’t entail lifting my arms above my head any, because I went to the gym today (got some pb’s!) and now I ache just a little bit. Toodles.

I doubt any of you will have noticed, but I haven’t got a pb at the gym for a while. There are several reasons for this. When I was in the midst of assignment-hell, I barely left the house for three weeks, let alone went to the gym. This is now over. But, for some reason sitting doing bugger all for three weeks and eating kitkats has made me loose condition. Strange! So when I did get back to the gym, I wasn’t quite at the level I had left at. Also, I’ve changed my routine, to try and get in condition for a run I’m going in the middle of July. It’s harder, hence no pb’s yet. Last excuse (for now at least), Moose has a new job, meaning that we have to start a new schedule, and it’s not settled down yet. It’s hard for me, all this exercising, especially seeing as how I’ve got two decades plus of being a lazy cow to overcome. All I’m saying, is stop looking so judgmental at me.

Stop it!

Ok, it isn’t funny, really it isn’t, when you hear what is being done to some of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, but I couldn’t help but utter a guilty giggle when the worst the Guardian could come up with was that one prisoner was “kept awake by the music of Christina Aguilera”. I am sure there is more to this story than meets the eye, really I am, and I deplore the numerous civil-rights violations that are going on at the detention centre, but… *convulses quietly with laughter*

Best quote so far about Batman Begins – “Think American Pyscho redux, this time in tights” from the NYT.

Saw this, laughed. Now all I need is a badger-with-coke-can-on-nose and weasel-in-crisp-packet-jacket cartoon and I’m set. Chicken, Tunafish, Gopher…

I have a problem with the following statement on time travel as proposed by the BBC ¹. [Time Travel story]
Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don’t suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births – that much is obvious.
The problem is this: it is not just the timeline of the person whose birth was prevented who is affected. The timelines of everyone associated in even the tiniest way with that person are affected, as are the timelines of everyone associated with the people associated with the now-non-existent person, and the timelines of everyone associated with them… If we are all separated by just seven degrees, even the timeline of Kevin Bacon would be affected. Who knows, he might turn out to be a janitor at the local high school, or something.
My point being, if someone suddenly had not been born, the entire world would change to reflect that, and we would have no knowledge that the person had ever been born in the first place.
You following me? ². [And yes I am aware of the fact that time travel doesn’t exist, and that I read too much science fiction, but it’s logic darling!]

I can’t quite put my feelings into words, but I do feel that the latest suggestion from David Blunkett about forced savings for pensions is wrong ³. [The pensions story] I am totally aware of the need for pensions, and as soon as I have money to put into a scheme, I will be (into more than one most likely, as I think this is one time that hedging bets would be a good idea). I have no problem with strongly recommended pension schemes. It is the ‘forced’ but that gets me. Because when you look at it, and all things are considered, we already have a mandatory pension scheme, and it is called National Insurance, not to mention the taxes that I have no problem paying ⁴. [I am not a fan of a large portion of my (currently theoretical) salary going into an account other than mine, but at the same time, I know that it is necessary and pay the money with only the minimum of complaining. After all, I like that we have free healthcare, water coming out of the taps, and that people don’t have to pay for (a large chunk of) their education. In fact, I wouldn’t mind paying slightly more tax if it meant that all education to graduate level and beyond was at least partially subsidized.] But I digress slightly. As I said at the start of the paragraph, I can’t quite vocalise my argument, mainly because in this (as many other things), I can see both sides. But I do think that it is dangerous to make savings schemes mandatory in this way, I am sure that it could be argued to be against civil liberties ⁵, [Or whatever it is that we British have that are analogous to them: I’ve been watching too much West Wing lately.] and I suspect that it could cause more problems than it solves, especially among those with a lower income.

On a happier note, England beat Australia with 253-7 against 252-9. It would be nice to say that we gave them the thrashing they so richly deserved, but it did look a little close there for a while. It makes my heart proud to think that the England cricket game is no longer quite the joke it was during my childhood. This is our fourth straight win against Australia in four competitions. We whomped Bangladesh recently, and generally are playing a better game than I can remember in a while. My favourite so far though? When my local team of Taunton beat Australia by four wickets last Wednesday (the 15th). He he he. No, I’m not a cricket nut, though I do infinitely prefer it to football, can follow a conversation about cricket with a fair amount of ease ⁶, [Sadly, this precludes me from using a wonderful quote as a post title, so I’m putting it here: When somebody tries to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit him in the head with a teapot. – West Wing, Series 1] and will willingly sit down to watch a match ⁷. [If there isn’t, like, a good film on the other side, or something] Who can’t help but love a game where they still break for afternoon tea?!

At least when you are in San Francisco.
Well, that’s what Moose says is the law there.

WARNING!
What follows is the first of my thesis-related rants. There will no doubt be many more over the next three months, but I’m starting as I mean to go on. Feel free to avert your gaze. On the other hand, watching the car-wreck that is my academic career is sure to prove amusing.

Sorry that it has been a few since I last blogged – my life has become taken over by wikis in the last week, and they are taking all my creative juices. Once you’ve got one set up ¹. [and man is that proving to be a head ache!] they are surprisingly addictive. I installed Instiki on my Mac on Tuesday, and spent a gleeful five or so hours adding to it. As far as Mac’s are concerned, Instiki really is almost as easy as it claims to set up and use on the desktop. Due to firewall concerns, I can’t make it live to the world from halls sadly, but it is proving to be a great tool to help me plan/organise/work on the thesis, if a little slow.

Alas, things aren’t going quite so well with the wiki that I am attempting to get live via one of the lab computers. I am already starting to curse the day that the Godhead sent me an email saying “this topic would be perfect for you…” If it wasn’t hard enough to wade through the 100 or so different wikis out there to pick the one that best fits my requirements, I’m also in the midst of a crash course on servers, firewalls, law (the licensing and copyright agreements are hellish), and more programming languages than you can shake a medium-sized stick at.

Considering the last time I touched the command prompt on a windows computer, I was about six and Tim was charging me 50p a time for lessons in dos, I’ve got a bit of catching up to do! Yes, I know that admitting that means my geek-credentials are slipping, but to reassure you on that score, I did spend a merry five or so hours last night doing a redesign for Moose’s site, which she has no intention of using, just for the fun of it. At least I’ve proven ². [nearly, still got some tweaks to get it working properly on IE] that you can do a site like hers without having to resort to tables nested to the nth degree. There was no point whatso ever in doing it, but I enjoyed it, found it relaxing, and it wasn’t wiki-related.

Then my darling brother asks the innocent question “wouldn’t it be easier to write your own wiki, especially as your requirements are a little… odd?”

ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On sober reflection, I’m keeping that one for when (if) I ever get around to that PHd.

–update–
Apache is now running on the lab computer (hereafter referred to as MY computer)³. [It is mine in the sense that it has the programs I need installed on it, and I am permitted to turf anyone who uses it off when I need it. He he, the power!] The next step is to configure it, and the wiki of choice.

I repeat, ARG!!!!!!!!!

I have been tagged. No, not as painful as it sounds, though it did cause me to actually use my brain and come up with decent answers for once. I have no objection to responding to it because reading is one thing that I couldn’t do without. I had tried to do something along these lines back on the ‘Holm, but it has fallen on stony ground lately due to 1) no time and 2) the daunting prospect of telling people about the horrendous amount of books I read. On with the show/tig/tag, as requested by JB.¹. [Who am I to deny the request of one of my more serendipitous random internet acquaintances?]

1) Total number of books I own:
Because I am a remarkably anal kind of person, and I had nothing to do one summer holiday when I was about 16, I actually made a spreadsheet to contain details of all the books I own.
And reading that sentence back does not make me sound any cooler.
Anyway, it is still going strong and (according to it), I have around 550 books on my shelves ². [Split between the good old homestead back in Somerset, and here in S’oton.] There are also a good few hundred (I would estimate) in boxes in the loft, mainly books from when I was a kid that I am saving for whatever sprogletts might enter the family. As they won’t be coming from me, that means when my brother gets his act together, my potential nieces/nephews will have a lot to read. I really really dislike getting rid of books, so that number is only going to grow, I am sure.

2) The last book I bought:
Being a student I don’t have all that much cash to spend, so I tend to use the local libraries a lot.
I did just shell out money on “The Long Way Round” by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as a gift for the Crazy Canalman (Farv).
For me, I think it was “The Poet” by Michael Connelly, when I saw a copy going cheap at my favourite local cheap bookstore, in order to feed my Michael Connelly binge. I also recently purchased “Going Postal” by Terry Pratchett, and “The World Since 1945” by T.E. Vadney so I can better understand the historical context behind the sci-fi I read (though the Latvian Lovely has got more use out of it for her Jewish History MA than I have).

3) The last book I read:
In an attempt to make this more representative of my reading tastes, here are the last two I read, one silly, one serious.
“Venus” by Ben Bova – not his best, but still a wonderful romp through space, filling in some of the blanks in what happened to some characters after the Asteroid Wars series.
“Wild Boy” by Jill Dawson – amazing. Woke up saturday morning around 8am, picked it up, started to read, next time I looked at the clock it is 1230, and I’ve finished the book. A tale of a savage ‘wild boy’ found in France just after the Revolution, and how he is looked after by a doctor who, for the time, is enlightened. It is remarkably poignant, especially when it is clear to us, the modern reader, that the boy is autistic not, as the thinkers of the time thought, in some ‘natural’ state that could show them the true nature of humanity. Based on a true story.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me:
Limiting this to five is going to be hard. I wouldn’t say any of these books changed my life, but they are the ones that I will pick up and read again, and again, and again… My desert island books if you will.
(oh and, like JB said, the numbers are not ranking, they’re so I can keep my head straight.)

1. “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson – either my father or my brother are responsible for this one, for which I am grateful. Impossible to put it into a category but if I had to choose just one book, this would be it. His other works, especially the Baroque Cycle books, are also genius. The man can get ‘bop’ and ‘prod’ into historical novels.
2. “Neuromancer” by William Gibson – showing my cyber-punk credentials with this one, aren’t I? As with many of the books I read, I have my brother to thank for putting this in my path. That, and a day in Brooklyn when the AC broke down, and it was too hot to do anything other than sit and read.
3. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley – read this for GCSE english and I am so glad, because it is so good.
4. “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood – each time I read this, I get something new, and the ending always comes as a surprise. Along with “Handmaid’s Tale”, this is one of Atwood’s best books.
5. “Hamlet” by Shakespeare – can’t miss the Bard from the list, can we? I can’t put my finger on why, but this is my favourite of his plays. It was also my great aunt’s favourite play, and she was an English teacher for nearly 60 years, so I must have good taste 🙂

If the list is heavily stacked in favour of sci-fi/post-apocalyptical/cyber-punk, then I am sorry… No, I’m not. That’s my taste and I won’t apologize for it. I do read other stuff, but when forced to pick just five, those came to mind first. Some more books I want to share to be found at the ‘Holm book reviews page.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs:
Without doubt the hardest part of this whole process, for I am what might be described as somewhat voyeuristic in my surfing habits. I have lots of blogs that I read on a regular basis, but few I participate in. I can’t tag JB because he tagged me first, so it would have to be:
Moose because she reads a fair bit as well and, since I cracked the footnote problem, I need something else on this blog to annoy her.
Jess if she ever manages to fight free of real life long enough, because I know she liked the Da Vinci Code³[I couldn’t talk about books without at least mentioning it!], and I would like my faith in her good taste restored!
That leaves three. Um, well, if Jason would care to respond, or Jeff⁴ [At this point it might be wise to inform this individual that he is referred to as ‘Jeff’ on the blog, but since when have I ever been wise?]and the Cute Canadian, then it would be OK. I’d ask the Scouse One, but who knows when he’ll poke his nose into this blog.

There just aren’t enough words…

Suica commercial

Eternal love and devotion to JB for finding this. I can now die happy.

On a similar penguin-in-advertising note, I’ve just remembered the penguins in the Switch/Maestro advert, and in the recent Oasis advert¹. [Not totally sure if I mean Oasis, but it is some form of drink that is meant to be refreshing, that I am allergic to, and that has a humorously inappropriate penguin.]

Let the games begin! I think that I have cracked sidenotes/footnotes, at least for those of you with happy browsers ¹. [By happy browsers, I mean Firefox, Safari, and anything else that supports CSS3.]
Everyone else ² [Namely, Moose, which is a bit unfortunate considering that I started looking into this fix mainly to keep her happy…] will see them inline between [] brackets. Fingers crossed!

This does have the disadvantage that I can no longer be annoying and force people to scroll down to the bottom of a long post, and then back up again. I am sure that if I think long and hard enough I will be able to come up with something equally as annoying. Just give me time.

Now, I really really would appreciate feedback on this little innovation ³ [I do wish that I could take full credit for the solution, but the idea, and some of the basic coding, belongs to Ben Hammersley and Andreas Bovens]. IE – does it work for you?! I can see me tweaking it for some time to come till I get it just right. For example, it’s been live for five minutes and I’ve already come across one problem that could see me scrapping the whole idea entirely. The current method relies on creating anchors between the number and the sidenote, which is fine if it was just one post per page, but it isn’t, so I have had to adopt a clunky alpha-numeric system to distinguish between posts. Not elegant at all. Hmmmm. -brain goes off to do some thinking on the subject-

Once again, the will to blog has temporarily left me, so I am going to fall back on the old faithfuls of random snippets of information.

• The Mystery Its (mentioned in conjunction with the post shortly after May 8th, that Moose gave me for my unofficial birthday) are actually the Clive’s (Chives). They are doing nicely. Sadly, the Basil’s aren’t doing so well. Fred is dead, Barney is hanging in there, and Whilma is doing the best of the bunch, but isn’t looking as healthy as she could do. Not surprising seeing as how I am one of the least green-fingered people I know. I can just about keep spider plants alive, but that’s it. Sad, when you think I am descended from two wonderful gardeners. Granddad had a garden to die for, whilst my Mum just has to look at a plant and it thrives. I even managed to kill the cactuses I had when I was a kid 🙁
• My lecturers are starting to use phrases that make me think they are aliens impersonating the Great Dave and Graeme the Godhead: Yikes! and Groovy! respectively. Odd. Very odd. To think these people command the respect of a large portion of the archaeological community.
• On a related topic, my thesis is officially started, with my supervisor rubbing his hands in excitement like a little schoolboy. Not literally of course, but in my head… My enthusiasm on the other hand has run away and is hiding in the corner gibbering.
• Because we all need a laugh – Dancing Hugh. It’s just a clip from Love Actually, but the Fan Club’s name is amusing. In fact the whole thing is just funny. I have independent verification of this. It’s not just me being silly. Ah, the beauty of random blogs…
• My sense of humour, whilst warped, rarely lets me down, so trust me on the following: A Threadbared Epic: “Barbie & Ken – Living In A Crocheted Paradise”. I repeat. Trust me.
• So totally hypnotic: Pencil Clock. One of these days I want to see it go from one day to the next.
• Aren’t you glad that I have had nothing to do today bar trawl the internet?
• He’s 82, and blogging with the best of them. My mother is… not that old… and can’t remember how to turn her shiny MacMini on. Odd, really.
• Ok, so some people do complain about pylons as well as windfarms (if you didn’t read the Lost Posts, then you’re missing out on a peach of a related rant…)
• Ten things everyone should know about digital cameras.

In other more Cas-related news, the Cute Canadian, Moose, and myself went to see Sin City on Monday. I enjoyed it. Not as much as I was expecting to, alas. Truly stunning visually (possibly worthy of an oscar nod, or some form of award at least), and acted to perfection. I will never look at Frodo in quite the same way again! (Elijah Wood plays a mute psychopathic ninga-style cannibalistic killer, for those of you who haven’t seen the film). On the down side, the heavy voice over that works perfectly in graphic-novel style seemed forced, and there were parts that were just too faithful to the comics. The middle section with Dwight (Clive Owen) and the killer prostitutes seemed unnecessary, and the rest seemed a little jumbled. Definitely glad I saw it, and the gore wasn’t overpowering as I was worried it might be: in fact, to quote one critic, a very empowering film for a woman, considering the number of testicles that were chopped/shot off, and the way the female characters generally kicked collective ass. Trying to decide on a rating is a hard one: not quite a two and half penguins, but at the lower end of the three penguin scale.

The other film we saw this week was The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse. Now, I am probably one of the few students in this country who wasn’t slavishly devoted to the series. The bits I watched I liked and found funny, but it wasn’t really by thing. I do admit its true genius in totally subverting the meaning of the word ‘Local’ for me for ever more though. So, whilst looking forward to the film, I was prepared not to mind if it was a bit pants. I liked it! Some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, so proper ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww moments as you have come to expect from the League, and a plot farcical enough to keep a Python happy. On the downside, possibly a few more characters and confusion than really needed, and in places it seemed a little forced. Worth the money though. Firmly in the middle-to-upper three penguin range.