Sunny Breaks

That’s the sound of a karate kick. I grabbed a new theme from kde-look the other day. Kung Fu: I really think this is the theme that will not only make my datamachine faster, but will also make me more productive, successful and happy as a hooman beeing. I like the tiger.

I pointed out some of the things I have on the panel. KATE stands for Kde Advanced Text Editor. The 1,2,3,4 bit is the multiple desktops that are a standard feature of the Kde desktop. Sorry about the hand(mouse) writing – I was all coffeed up.
One thing I saw yesterday: lamas in a paddock between here and uni. Just a couple of them with a flock of sheep. Jean tells me that the lamas are put there to watch over the sheep. I’ve never heard of this before. The lamas develop a protective nature toward the sheep – and watch out for intruders like foxes etc. And they really were watching out. They were sitting on the rise near a damn and looking sagely into the distance – one in each direction.
Lamas are weird enough without this behaviour. Amazing. i will have to investigate further. This is the type of thing that if I was driving would make me stop to look regardless of other commitments. On the way home, going past them again – I saw an extra one – and it was taking lunchbreak – eating grass. This makes sense; they’d want to take shifts if they wanted to successfully cover the full 24hrs.

teK*noKulchar lecture today was really cool. At the start of the year my communications tute teacher said he was gonna blow my mind (with concepts etc) but this never happened. But if anything’s gonna do it – it’ll be the this subject.
Am a bit caffeine freaked right now. Never had a takeaway long black from there before – only sit down cups. Very long and well-bitter.

Don’t what I’ve got myself into with this truth & trascenence subject.. I like airy discussion but only up to a certian point – which’ll be passed beyond every toosday afternoon for the next however-many months. i’m just not a deep thinker. Talking about questions that have no definite answers on this plane of existance gets me frustrated … well it did today.
Saw a “drinking coconut” in the supermarket – never seen onna them before. kinda looked like a giant tea candle but cone-shaped at the top. Also must remember not to find myself in supermarket between 3:30 – 4pm again … many many children, and other people. Kids – so much noise and motion. It makes me dizzy.

Kangaroos in the backyard again last night! I went out to take a slash and looked up it’s right there, 5 feet away and 4.5 feet high standing up looking at me. Scared the bejeebas outta me. One was hangin’ out on the nature strip this morning to,, so got a foto – good becasue it was sunny and the other ones i have were in overcast conditions.

And COSMIC JUSTICE got creative on the weekend in Vancouver at the CART race. Both the Newman/Haas cars conked out at exactly the same time! That’s right, Little napoleon (who actually is okay, but he’s still way ahead on the leader board and it would’ve made things boringer (that’s right, boringer) if he’d won again) and or course fittipaldi in his prozac icecreamvan, which deserves to conk out in every race forever.
And international Bad Boy and Rebel, Townsend Bell got the arse from patrick racing, and deservedly so – he can’t drive but his balls tell him he can. Oriol Servia, the Catalonian dude got the gig – a shame Roberto Moreno didn’t … i really hope he gets a drive next year.

ODP. Have been trawling slowly through the weblogs list – those starting with the letter A. I think the quality is a bit up on a scene like weblogs.com eventhough they’re not being updated as regularly.
I found this rather political one, and wholelottanothing – which is by the guy who runs metafilter; Matthew Haughey.
Also, alice, whose personality really jumped off the page at me. (Her layout is FUBAR right now but…) … I can’t decide if it’s just a really good read – or if was exactly the type of thing I wanted to read when I found it. Either way – I read the whole thing and this astounds even me.
This is where D stands for Discontent comes into it – Is there more happening in her life than mine? Is it just that i don’t do much — or that I am not bloggging properly (needs more drama, salt) [teehee – reminds me of – if you don’t think sex is dirty then you’re probably not doing it right] …. am probably overthinking all this.
As a sometime fiction writer I know well the self-editor “The Man In The Grey Suit” and he gets in the way of hitting that balance of raw thought/pre-prepared ideas and balancing information and feeling.

Have been feeling a touch of the SADs (seasonal adjustment disorder) and more than a touch of the RIDs (restless, irritable, discontent) this last three days – so was nice to get some sun between lecture and tute this morn.
Saw `you’ve got mail’ for the first time last night. Was pretty fucked up. That’s a pretty fucked up character that Hanks plays. Why the hell couldn’t he have told her who he was sooner??? What was the problem? Bizarre – I was sittin’ there thinking `where the hell is this going?’
Also weird in that it was like two themes – that of the corporation destroying the small business, and the theme of secrecy/deception. Interesting in that there was almost no product placements apart from the ever-present AO(hel)L and a tiny apple logo.
Compared to a lot of movies – the technology aspect didn’t look all that dated considering it was released in ’98. The oh-so unglamourous screech of dial-up was in there (but at least in my world) that’s still a normal thing — as opposed to all you folk with always-on connections. (Truth be told – I’ve got the modem song turned off.)
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After a bit more mucking around, I’ve added a guest book script. It’s a very simple one. Perhaps not essential to the journalised part of this thing – more for the Read-Onlys.
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Speaking of -ised and -ized — I’ve had a bit of a rethink on the whole whacking ZEDs in the place of ESSes, and how it’s always bugged me = amercano cultural imperialissimo…. and perhaps I’m wrong.
I remeber learning that there’s this section in virginia/carolina – somewhere down there – who speak much in a Shakey Shakspearian style – and that back the (1600s, england +) it was Fall for that season after summer, not Autumn – which is a French word and throwing a bit of French into your sentences got all trendy in England in the 17th-18th Cent. sometime – theu we now have autumn.
I was also pulled up re: the star trek series `Enterprise’ because there’s a bit in the opening creds that has a ye olde map with the word `Enterprize’ on it. I thought this was a fabrication. But apparently that was the correct spelling for that ship at that time — so maybe all these ESSes (or at least some of them) are french hangover. I’d have to look into it more. Either way, I don’t think I’ll let ZED substitutes bug me nomore.

Let’s take a look at how those blogathon participants are going.
Roughly 17 hours in and it’s getting inneresting — clara is making up terrible poetry and recycling IRC transcripts, intergalactic is looking … uhm… somewhat worse for wear and sounding demoralised.
ye olde phart is getting judgemental toward the other participants, athena is drinking something called “cornwater”.

Can the internet handle all this `information’? Reminds me of the question, `god must be very, how could it possibly have time for me?’
In a couple of places yesterday I noticed people saying that their weblogs weren’t all that important in the grander scheme of things. I’m not sure about this. Either they’re all important or none of them and nothing is important. i think I go with the former.

name: Athena
email:
url: aquatique.net
ip: 207.61.117.93
date: 2002-11-18-08-04
Hey, a few months after that blogathon experience. If you want to know what cornwater is, we just boil the cornwater and drink the water that we used to boil the corn in. It’s quite sweet since we put sugar in it. I know this is totally pointless but whatever…have a good day!

FAQ is here. Kinda sounds like fun. 24hr physical things are interesting like squash. But really, potato-ing by the datamachine only gets interesting after 30-36hrs non-stop. That’s the bit that I’m innerested in, bugger the charity stuff – it’s an add on. I for one, know well the effects of sleep deprivation – hoowee!.
Ah – maybe next year. Staggered thee way it is – it – the blogathon that is – wouldn’t kick off on the east coast of australia until 11pm saturday night – which would mess me up for psychology lecture monday morn. A lame excuse I know. I know.
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Am wearing my dad’s jumper today. Is one of the couple that I most visualise him in, with overalls; doing stuff around the garden on a weekend. Granma knitted it – is a really dense knit. Gran’s jumpers rock. I reckon if some dude in platemail accosted me and sent a longsword slash across my torso it’d slide right off – it feeels like wearing chainmail – not that I ever have worn chainmail.
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Is a whole bunch of GCC (stands for Gnome C Compiler – i think) coming down through right now – and eventhough it usually doesn’t – today it’s floored browsing.
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Jean is murmurring about wanting to get a digital camera, which is interesting. Says there’s noo such thing as just a journalist these days, everybody’s gotta be able to take photos too. i know this’ll be just like the whole iMac thing and if I show too much external excitement she’ll use it as a source of power over me. Funny thing is i don’t much care that there’s an apple datamachine in the house, now that it’s here. i know that sir flakey would severely chastise me for saying so – but I now think apples are for people who think they’re too special to use windows, but are too dumb to use Linux. Of course that’s too harsh – they probably just don’t have the time to learn Linux. But these prices for the latest OS upgrade, and for changing to .Mac from iTools really remind me how proprietary apple is.
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This gonna be a extra-long amount of warbling because I can’t do nuffing else.
I have been jumping into the woodnose95 partition occasionally – and at the end of a mental day, enjoys a go at “Leadfoot” – a gum-chewin’ dirt-track racin’ car game. Well – they’re kinda cars. One sort is these dune-buggy type things and the other is `sports trucks’ ie. SUVs ie. Oversized Novelty Utes. i much prefer the dune-buggy, and I become Checkers Le Ranch tank-slapper extrodinaire. it’s a trial version, so there’s only two tracks I can race, but that’s okay. It’s not like this is my overall supreme choice of computer gaming – this is limited by a)what comes on the pc world CDs, b)what will run on woodnose95, c)what will run on Juggernaut datamachine. Racing games are fun. Taking an opponent out in a head-on is a no-no. It penalises you by damaging the engine which slows you and even may result in disqualification – when this happens I feel like paul Tracy. When I am just having a shitty run and consistently finishing 16th out of a field of 16 I feel like Townsend Bell, racing for Mo Nunn’s team. However I am mastering the art of screamming into a corner, powersliding the buggy into some very effective t-bones and side-swipes. there’s no penalty for this except for banging up the side a bit, which is no sweat.

name: SirFlakey
email:
url: www.core.org.au
ip: 144.132.163.213
date: 2002-07-30-22-29
Don’t worry – you’re entitled to your opinion =). To be honest I use a Mac because I like how it looks and how it works. My favourite computer was my old-ish SGI O2. Quite frankly I want cool computers .. not just computers =).
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 144.132.163.213 / Block IP range 144.132.163.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.9
date: 2002-07-31-20-57
haha – I knew even as I was writing it that “apples are for people who think they’re too special for windows” – i was being overly harsh.
And yes – the aesthetic side of PCs is severely lacking. The jelly bean iMac and Ti Powerbook really stand out. (the new imac is yet to grow in me)
I forget how long it took me to really get comfortable using the linux OS – and tend to get frustrated because I can’t figure out the nuances of OS X straight away.

I don’t mean to getting so hardcore about stuff lately – but what’s the deal? They (that’s right, THEY) put cameras on the bus. Just the little old town to deakin suburban busses. These little tinted domes attatched to the ceiling. Actually the worst thing about this sort is that there probably isn’t any camera in there – but everyone bhaves as if there is. You can’t see into it – it’s too tinted.

Speaking of the all seeing eye – I finally got a wweb statistics tracking set up happening. After all morning of wriggling and wrangling things around – I got advanced logger from perlonline werking. it has an banner ad in the stats page – but ah – whadareyagunnado? Besides it’s not such a wide open area – half of the scripts I looked at had gobble-degook for install instructions, and some were just no good.
Interestingly, even with this one, it has some weird jawascript or something that means that I can only really access the data from Konqueror.
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Damn cold here. i’m gettin’ that far away feeling lots.
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And I’m starting to think this is all wrong – the blog structure that is. It’s like starting at the end of a day then running backwards through it. not the actual content – but how it’s presented. The thing is I can’t figure how far the other way around it should go.
Obviously I can’t write letters backwards, or cut n’ paste every line so that they start at the bottom the go up.
I don’t know – this is fucking my head. I mean, it looks okay if you are to start right at the moment of Now – and then go backwards in a straght line. But what if you’re starting way back then and reading toward the present.
Maybe if it was like the start of Star Wars – but in rewind – so that the words start a long way off and get bigger as you read them then disappear.

I blame the proscibed reading of modern science fiction on this problem I’m having. Goodness me – what’s been going on since 1950!? i’m trying to read this stuff for TeknoKulchu and it’s …. I don’t know what it is.
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Apparently there’s some type of bloggathon this weekend — I don’t know much about it — will have to find out.

name: jeremiah
email: jeremiahnewbie@delusional.nu
url: www.delusional.nu
ip: 24.100.92.250
date: 2002-07-27-11-15
To post chronologically or not to post chornologically, that is the question …
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 24.100.92.250 / Block IP range 24.100.92.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.4
date: 2002-07-27-13-18
Aye, indeed! another one is whether or not to post upside down. teehee.

I like his earlier werk because it’s a little more accesible. Unfortunately I don’t have a spare lifetime to spend getting to the bottom of his Canticles – which are pretty weird. Whatever meaning is in there is obscure. They’re long too.
So here’s probably my fave of his shorter early stuff:

Plotinus

As one that would draw thru the node of things,
Back sweeping to the vortex of the cone,
Cloistered about with memories, alone
In chaos, while the waiting silence sings:

Obliviate of cycles’ wanderings
I was an atom on creation’s throne
And knew all nothing my unconquered own.
God! Should I be the hand upon the strings?!

But I was lonely as alonely child.
I cried amid the void and heard no cry,
And then for utter loneliness, made I
New thoughts as crescent images of me.
And with them was my essence reconciled
While fear went forth from mine eternity.

For a while in his carreer as a word-man, Pound was poo-pooed because he thought fascism was a good thing. In fact he was locked up for a few years – around the time of the world war II.
But before we say, `serves him right’, everyone should be allowed to believe what they do — and it’s worth noting that he wasn’t the only one who thought like that at the time.
“Mussolini was portrayed as a `moderate’ with enormous popular appeal who had brought efficient administration and prosperity, slaying the beast [possible communism in post WW1 italy] and opening the doors to profitable investment and trade. Reflecting common attitudes in the business community, J.P. Morgan partner Thomas Lamont described himself as `something like a missionary’ for Italian facism, expressing his admiration for Il Duce, `a very upstanding chap’ who had `done a great job in Italy,’ and for the `sound ideas’ that guided him in governing the country. Otto Kahn of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. praised the Facists further for ending `parliamentry wrangling and wasteful impotent bureaucracy’ and bringing `a spirit of order, discipline, hard work, patriotic devotion and faith’ under `the clear sighted and masterful guidance of that remarkable man, Benito Mussolini.’ Judge Elbert Gary of United Steel asked wheter `we, too, need a man like Mussolini.’ The US Embassy was particularly impressed that `there has not been a single strike in tthe whole of Italy’ since the Fascist takeover.”
(From page 39 of Noam Chomsky’s Deterring Democracy, 1991/2)

The only diff. between Pound and these people was that they jumped off the wagon when Italy, Germany started flexing muscle. i should make it clear too – I’m not a fascist, Honest! :^)
They eventually let Ezra out of gaol.

name: tony
email:
url: www.tamesapien.com/weblog/blog.ht…
ip: 210.50.219.192
date: 2002-07-25-22-43
The picture you attached is not of Ezra Pound. I think it is Kramer from Seinfeld. :)

TONY
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 210.50.219.192 / Block IP range 210.50.219.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.9
date: 2002-07-26-08-37
Haha – yes – i was tempted to put “A rooster job even Kramer would be envious of”, in the caption. Also very Eraserhead.

I seriously dunno what happened in the kitchen. It happened during the night – woke us, but it was way too cold to investigate. i wish I’d taken a picture – because cleaning it up was the first thing I did as soon as waking — so memory is a little hazy – but it really did look odd. I’ve never imagined plates could bounce or roll their way to the middle of the room then break.
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Here I was thinking that I’d end up with a rabid christian teaching the `truth and trascendence’ subject and it seems that he’s a rabid buddist. Even has a website: wisdom.org/. i’m still not sure about him though. In the lecture he said “karma” – and rolled the R – “karrrma” and I kind of grinned – and he kind of looked stern at me (apparently that’s how the enlightened say it) So what are the karmactic implications of that??
Anyway – looks like I’ll be able to get my fill of zen – and probably do an assignment on it.
The guy who originally wrote up all the materials for TEKNOKULCHU has split – He probably got a better offer – and we’ve got this other guy – who I think is jormallly a cinema studies type. There’s still plenty of science fiction in there – and even better – it looks like I’ll be able to write a short story instead of an assignment. Sweet.
Comms Sudies should be cool too because of there being so much about net-related technologies in there.

Am at uni right now. Last night a poltergeist threw dinner plates around the kitchen. Either that or I didn’t stack them properly. How do three plates leap out of the washing rack and get three feet away from the bench before smashing?
This is quite serious.
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This ol’ acer machine is running ndose2000 — and again – I see problems — I didn’t reallise what machines other than mine did with the weblogs-ring bar.
Will have to fix this when I get home.
That is – if my monitor hasn’t somehow jumped off the table.

I just wacked up a page of scans from b(if)tek’s cover of The Cars’ single `Wired for Sound’ (but this isn’t the imitation I’m talking about, no. (the versions a really very different)). I partly stuck it because Core `legend’, Silver is mentioned in the credits.
Also – I really like the artwork. It was released in 2000.
Earlier this year during latish night tv I see these ads for corporate prawns, “the superjesus” and their new album, `jet age’ — and butter me on both sides if their cover design isn’t very similar indeed to B(if)tek’s. Superjoose’s website is here I can’t get in because I don’t have enough Flash – but if you take a look you see what I’m getting at.
Oh – here’s a small pic of the album cover.

Anyway – as far as australian music people go, b(if)tek are way cooler than superjesus. From a teknokulchu perspective, there’s a nice little quote under the CD too; “By embodying a nostalgia for the past in new materials we retard an acceptance of the present and by extension, the future, becuase the future is in the present.” (Guerrillla Television, 1971)
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Also, please note the inclusion of `Reading Gnome’s Story’ to the Reas Onlys section. It’s not about that desk top environment that stands to the side of KDE — this is about a real life gnome.
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I reached a new high in the scary-lookin ratings today – when I finally got my travel concession sorted. To start with this lack of sun has got the zits happenin at a kinda nasty level (O Mr.Sun come back soon! – it’s drivin’ me nuts reading these Northern Hemispheric weblogs of warmth).
Add to that bad photo – from the digital imaging joint – which alone bugs me heaps – if I had a digi-camera or even a web cam I might’ve been able to sort this out myself) I got 20 bad photos of my head for $10 – man…..
And then today the `bursar’ at uni had to stamp these photos of me – and it’s got a circular border – and Bang – this big ring of ink goes right across one of my photo eyes llike an eye patch – and so now on my travel concession I look like a pirate. But not a seafaring pirate (no parrot) — maybe a space pirate. AArrrgghh!

name: SirFlakey
email:
url: www.core.org.au
ip: 144.132.163.213
date: 2002-07-23-18-56
Hehe – I’ll send a note to Silver about it =)
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 144.132.163.213 / Block IP range 144.132.163.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.58.6.7
date: 2002-07-24-09-55
cool! I know there’s more than one dj silver on this planet but in this case I’m pretty sure it matches up.

While waiting for the bus this arvo I got around to reading the article on urine therapy in this month’s Nexus. They’ve extracted the article; it’s here. The idea is you drink a little of your own piss once in a while and this is really good for you. As interesting as it sounds I couldn’t help but think of that monty python bit about, `you are like a golden shaft of bat’s piss surrounded in darkness’ … I can’t remember exactly how it goes though.
Whatever the case, if I ever give it a go, I’ll tell yas. The little thing that bugged me was how it `recommended’ that for it to be really worth it you should cut out all the other bad things — smoking (that one applies to me) fried foods (again) sugar (kinda) cold drinks (????) spices, refined foods, meat, alcohol and other recreational drugs.
At that point it gets a bit like the stone in the soup pot, and of course your piss is going to be a shining example of health.
Worth a google if you’re really innerested. T’is also known as Shivambu Shastra.
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yak’s Handy Everyday Living Tips #14:
If you happen to find your self with a Boa Constrictor wrapped around your neck, and it just doesn’t want to let go, Simply duck into the bathroom, get the shower running at a nice warm temperature(but not too hot! You don’t want to burn yourself or that charmin’ reptile). Stand under it for a couple of minutes, this will relax the grip; and – “ahhh!” – feel that circulation return to your old noggin.

name:
email:
url: http://
ip: 65.211.255.24
date: 2003-03-21-14-49
how do you give a golden shower
Edit Comment / Delete Comment Block IP 65.211.255.24 / Block IP range 65.211.255.*

name: yak sox
email:
url: www.spouting.net
ip: 203.29.131.4
date: 2003-03-21-14-54
However you like. :^)
Preferable do it somewere that has good drainage.

From this perspective at least I feel like the index file is now looking okay. It turned out that there were some typos in the moo-able type CSS template. They were spelling position “postion” and this could have been throwing things out.
It still looks a little wacky in Konqueror, and there’s this mysterious phantom horizontal scroll bar that shows up in Opera. I notice it happen on several different sites that use moo-able type. I’m not sure if it’s Opera or what but no matter what I do to jiggle the layout it doesn’t remove it, yet if I click off the Spouting page to another site then back it disappears.
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Apple have just changed from their iTools set up to .Mac. Gene (or jean – however you wanna spell it) uses an @mac.com email address, which originally was given as part of the package – when buying the iMac. The email address was part of `iTools’. Now with the change, apple are saying to people that it’ll cost them an extra $99 US to keep the email address. They offer online disk storage as part of the deal, but she’s never used it nor probably ever would’ve.
It’s a bit much if you ask me. It wouldn’t have been too much to ask to let people keep their email addys with a basic 5mb inbox – and no other iTools/.mac features for those unwilling to fork out the extra dosh.
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Back to school and getting up early tomorrow.

Not all the prawns (or pr0n, as the kids inexplicably spell it) – you know that kind of stuff is what it is. But I’m talking about all these two bit search engines and “Register with 28 Search Engines For FREE!!!” type things.
I did this last night and I don’t know why. I actually find it depressing — all that crap – blinking things and enticements. It’s been a long time since anything like that’s been in my face. Who uses these trasy little engines anway? Anybody?

To seach I use google – exculsively. Of late I’ve come to realise that while it’s streets ahead of the others, it’s just not logical to restrict one’s research gathering in such a way. And from the other angle – just because it’s the only one I use, doesn’t make it so for everyone. If I was to judge each of them based on how hassle-free they’re submission process, then behind Google would be the Open Directory Project (obviously, a directory not an engine specifcally) – then alltheweb, then alta vista (you know where it is).
This Tameo (unsure of spelling and refuse to check) thing – I’d heard it was supposed to be good, but it looks like crap – it’s just an off-shoot of the askjeeves thing, which also is crap.
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i just read that TurboLinux is going down. That’s a shame – apparently it was quite popular in Japan (big in Japan) but, from when i had a look at it a couple of years ago – it wasn’t really offering anything unique.
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Ever been chopping hot chillies then picked yoour nose? I have.

Just got my results for the first semester – 79% for TEOTWAWKI?, 71% for comm. studies, 70 for psychology and 63 for social theory.

I really thought I FUBARed the exams and that the marks would be extemely average. But as someone said to me recently, they take into account that you’re under pressure and there’s only so much that you can do with an essay during an exam.
I’m really surprised about the international relations one – I got a 77 and an 80 for the essays – so the exam result can’t have been far off that at all.

Anyway – this first half has been very much a process of finding my feet. now i know what to target = the things that get marked. In a way it’s kind of rediculous, all I’ve got to do is fumble through the other bits, keep quiet when I haven’t done class readings (because – why would you if it’s not going to improve your mark??) and bullshite my way through pretending that I have done those things….
Ahh – i dunno — that’s not my style at all.

You know I enroled in a subject called `Technocultures: Crashing into the Future’ for this semester — I got the study guide and reader yesterday and most of the readings for it are science fiction! This was a bit of a surprise. We got helpings of J.G.Ballard, Pynchon, William Gibson and a whole bunch of others i don’t recognise. i’ve really got no idea about what’s gonna happen in that subject.
And then – I’m doing communication studies this year – and this semester the emphasis is on = you guessed it – technology in communications and culture. The textbook for it is titled, “technoculture: from alphabet to cybersex” by Lelia Green (and it seems to be that fresh off the press that i can’t find it on amazon) — t’is funny — has a little glossary of terms in the front going from:
bandwidth: the greater the bandwidth the more information (data, sound vision…… yadda yadda — through to WWW: etc.
Then smack bang right in the middle of all this is, Merkin: female pubic wig, used in burlesque shows as a defense against the acusation that women were unclothed; and in early theatre by boys/men acting female parts…………….. So There Ya Go.

i know how easy it is to pick these things apart and realise that as fun as these studies may seem, it’ll probably get swallowed up by academic mumbo-jumbo and indoctrination from The Man. The real challenge is to find the good bits in it. The good bits’ll probably have merkins on ‘em.
i don’t know what I expect – do I really think they’re going to let me go teach myself a bit of CGI/Perl? I’m not doing computers – it’s an arts course dammit.
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Please note the inclusion of fototime to the sidebar. nothing there is particularly recent, but it’s a start.
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Pivot have released a new version of their blogging script system. The one thing that set up had over moo-able type was that it’s on a BSD type license (but actually the more I think about that- it ain’t so grand; apple’s OS X is on a BSD license and they’re asking US$129 for 10.2) I’m no fan of copyright, but at least the moo-able type people let you mess with the stuff.

I’ve mentioned how I generally take too much reading amterial with me when travelling. It seems that MUAMMAR has the same quirk, but on a slightly larger scale.
On a recent trip down to the other end of the african continent he took:
400 security staff
60 armoured vehicles
Container ship
2 Boeings
1 Antonov plane
27 submachineguns
48 AK-47s
2 buses
Rocket-propelled grenade launchers
Jamming device
Goat carcasses.

(Actually it often occurs to me that a couple of dead goats would be handy for roadtrips, but I’m always outvoted.)
But to put it in perspective, i’m sure that US president/ambassadors take a fair amount of armaments when visiting unsafe territory, maybe not a container ship, or an Antonov, (the largest plane in the world) and the Jammer is a great idea – it stops remote controlled bombs from going off.
And if Prince can call himself The Purple One, then why can’t gadaffi call himself The Golden One?
Man they must have alotta cash…

Received a rather bizarre phone call on saturday night.
I pick it up, say `Hello?’, the other person says `Hello?’ but I hardly hear them because there’s long distance beeps.
Again I say `Hello, it’s yak’. They reply – and mimic me, repeating what I said. Oh great – I think, because I’m terrible at recognising people’s voices on the phone. My first guess was that it was ‘Taurus-buddy“ who visited a few months back; often he’ll start off phone converstaions with dumb jokes.
`Hello? Taurus-buddy?’, again they mimic me, saying exactly what I say about a half-second later than when i do. I pause silently, thinking that the silence will make them uncomfortable and give in, but it doesn’t.
`Okay who is it? i can’t guess’, i say with a ”give-up“ tone in my voice — and again they parrot me. I think maybe it’s my electrician-friend, and ask if it is. When they repeat what i say I realise that it’s not his voice. My last guess is my brother the NewsHound because his voice is similar to mine, but they just repeat me again.

After about thirty seconds of this it occurs to me that the mimicry is just too precise AND THEN i realise that it’s ME somehow looped though the phone, so I hang up but it still feels like I’m hanging up on someone else. With a phone normally you’ll hear your own voice through the ear-peice, but it’s only what is amplified through the mouth peice and is instantaneous. This was diffferent; there was a noticable lag.

So i sit there for about a minute with the (cordless) phone in hand thinking that somehow, someone had phone-phreaked me (but i thought phone-phreakin’ was almost impossible with modern technology?) — and Trippin’ Hard on the
concept of my phone ringing itself and ME being on the other end!

The phone rings again and it’s gene’s aunty The Nun in england. So that basically solved it – the first attempt must’ve got wires crossed somewhere annd i was on loop back. But a while after i was still thinking about it – it occurred to me that i sounded reallly kinda menacing, and, do I always sound menacing on the phone? But no – I think it was that the doppelganger mimicked my tone of voice exactly, which gave a menacing feel to it. If it was another person, then at some point in the little charade they’d crack slightly, or there’d be a little laugh in their tone of voice.
[Mental note to self; possible science-fiction story idea – parallel universes connected through telephone. Evil Me shows up to finish off Normal Me. Ps. – this has already happened to capatin James T. Kirk on several occasions.]
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Gene’s little sister is feeling muchh better, which is fantastic.
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It’s amazing what installing all the updates and DirectX can do for the stability of woodnose and it’s ability to successfully install games. The sound card isn’t even locking it up anymore! And on top of that a two-peice speaker set was donated to the ”support Spouting benevolent society” last night — so now i don’t have to wear the headphones if I wanna hear something.
I updated the BIOS too, which didn’t fry the motherboard, which is neat, but it didn’t improve anything either. Juggernaut is still underclocking – running at .75 of standard speed. i don’t know what to do about that.

I don’t know why I didn’t rig up some speakers of some sort to the datamachine before now. I might see if I can link in my old bass amp to the little ones to provide a bit of kick.
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My top 5 Led Zeppelin tracks:
1. When the levee breaks
2. Heartbreaker
3. The immigrant song
4. Kashmir
5. Since I been lovin’ you