Photos (from left to right): Use your mobile/cell phone for more than just phonecalls, Paul tries to keep up with thousands of tonnes of moving train, it’s amazing what kind of festivals comics will actually inspire, Andrew demonstrates his ape-like ability to hung upside down.
Playing Catchup with blogging
It’s been a while since a wrote a non-ranty entry here. Sorry about that, I’m just going through this phase right now where I’m severely pissed off with my government and that of certain other countries I will mention. I know I really want to move to Canada (where the grass is greener and I’m sure I’ll find problems too) but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to write an entry that’s more rounded than the last couple I’ve had here. So, here goes. You’ll probably still think I’m ranting by the end of it. First off, this entry has a few photos – I figured I’d just finish off commenting some of these recently uploaded photos from my Nokia 6230 cell/mobile phone. I do not upload these often (requires poweing down phone and removing memory card), so they’re in one block.
I’ve been back in the UK predominately for a month now. Long enough to remember why it is that I don’t want to live here in the longer term (nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live here long) – sorry I’m not meaning to rant here – but I’ve done a few things. I went to Germany for some work related stuff and ended up touring around the waterfront area of Hannover on a sunny weekend (there won’t be many more of those around these parts this year). I saw some Marc Chagall drawings in a museum in Hannover, which he had based on various topics – from the Bible to various aspects of human life. It’s the first time I’ve consciously seen his work and I went from thinking “I could do that, that’s interesting” to realising that this guy lived around 97 years and drew so many drawings in his life that it’s no wonder they didn’t all look like famous paintings. They look more down to earth precisely because that’s what he wanted to achieve. The guy is inspirational. Hmmm…I’ve been over to London a few times, had sushi, pizza, that kind of general thing. Did a lot of article catchup, called distant people and got a very large phone bill (196GBP worth this month) in the process (but I can tax deduct most of that) for work stuff. I made a bootable DVD for the magazine and am sorting out the next issue too – DVD ideas please! Send me your useful suggestions and I’ll consider using them.
Photos (from left to right): Seriously folks! Please don’t touch the network machines!, Like many other magazines, Linux User & Developer is sold in North America with the optical media removed from the cover (so we’ve redesigned the cover to make it more obvious that it’s missing), ever think USians care far too much about the star spangled banner that is their US flag? (yes, that’s a fire hydrant), armed police at the local football stadium (UK hysteria gone mad).
I’ve booked a flight to India for October. I’m flying into Mumbai on the 13th and back on the 21st. This is for a friend’s wedding ceremony (he’s actually already married) which is being held in Ahmedabad. This is not really near to Agra, but I might consider going anyway (to see the Taj Mahal) and I will hopefully get to see bits of what we British used to call “Bombay” before the Indians rightfully renamed it again. I’m looking forward to seeing India – I don’t know a lot about their culture and I don’t know what I’ll learn from this, but I hope to get some kind of insight. I’m not so sure what to make of their relationship with the US right now but they seem to be getting very pally when it comes to military technology. I don’t know how Pakistan will react to this in the longer term but then, I suppose that’s not really my problem. Interesting times. Alcohol is completely banned where I’m going so it won’t be a problem that I don’t drink much more than coffee – you can get a special permit if you don’t hold an Indian passport. Wonderfully draconian, but then, we do similar things here with other substances.
I ended up on Chinese time recently, having not quite had the chance to get sent over there on this occasion. Still, it’s reminded me that I’d like to see the People’s Republic. They’re the only country that’s executed more people than the US in recent times – seriously, check out the acticles on wikipedia about Capital Punishment for a fascinating insight into this unspeakably sick thing they do over in the USA (no killing is right even if you’re killing someone who murdered people – there are so many other ways to deal with these people than killing them). Did you know that the last time the US hanged someone was 1996? That the last time they shot someone with a firing squad was the same year? But I do digress. Speaking of things I want to see and things I want to do, I’ve decided I really should check out Burning Man next summer. I also probably should budget myself better so I have money for these trips by not spending so much of frivelous stuff in Starbucks and company. Reminds me, I went into a McDonalds recently! Wow! I was with a friend and her family, but it was quite a bizzare experience. I can’t say I like the place, but I suppose they are trying. They had a very limited menu that I could actually eat from but I managed to find a Fish Burger or something that claimed so to be. I’m not desperate to go in there again for another few years (it must have been a good year or more since I was last in a McDonalds and even then I only bought a cup of tea or coffee or something like that) – only other time I’ve been in such a place was buying tea for homeless people when that’s all I can get them (although I try to go elsewhere if possible). Incidentally, I’ve also recently seen a McCafe (yes! yuck!), a McWalk and even a McClean where you can take the McPiss having had enough McCrap.
I just bought a 30 year celebratory album of Runrig music. There’s a new version of The Greatest Flame which is pretty damn good, and of course a tribute track to everyone’s favourite emigration destination of choice. I also bought Green Day’s album, American Idiot (I agree with the sentiment of the song which shares the name – there are a lot of intelligent Americans that I know, but unfortunately the country as a whole has so many educational and institutional failings that the song as a whole turns out to be reasonably accurate). I think I might go to Paris for their November concert – LastMinute are doing some pretty reasonable deals on their website at the moment and I really don’t do this kind of thing, so it might be pretty fun. Now, if only I could actually rip this CD without having to repeatedly give calls to hdparm -Y to force reset the DVD drive in my Powerbook when it refuses to read. I haven’t determined yet whether the problem is that this drive is having problems reading some disks (which it actually is) or whether this disk has some nasty copy protection. Doesn’t matter, I’ll fix either later. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s nasty DRM anti-copy stuff since Green Day’s website is truly horrible – they have a nasty flash animation I can’t see and I mailed their website/label about the irony of their “American Idiot” banner and the requirement for a flash plugin from a large US corporation. No, I didn’t subject it “I don’t want to be an American Idiot either”, but it was tempting.
Photos (from left to right): seriously! don’t use Canadian coins in this US dryer! (thank you for your co-operation, citizen), playing Go with a random person at a coffeeshop at 02:00 am while in Portland (one of the nice things about non-UK countries in general, that this is possible), it’s interesting what you can buy in German bookstores, rml’s book gets translated.
I haven’t donated any money to the Katrina efforts yet and I don’t know if I will. I donated money after the Pacific Tsunami to aid in the recovery from a huge natural disaster which wiped out many thousands of people and destroyed lives, but I don’t know if I should donate money to aid a country which can already afford to send a man to the moon and illegally invade many other countries on a whim. But perhaps that’s putting my political views in front of the needs of average people. They can’t help it that their government makes no provision for a welfare state and doesn’t understand the tremdous power they could yield to do the right thing by all people – black, white, pink, purple, rich or even poor. Maybe I should donate some money. I’d be interested to hear what my friends and family think about it? Should I give money to the richest nation on the planet to help people their government would rather ignore?
I’m sitting in a certain coffeehouse right now (yes, that one), watching all these annoying people. I look at people and many of them seem to be saying “football, innit, wot?” type stuff. It’s annoying. I wish people would learn to think more and stop being so normal – but then, that’s my weird view on life. Luckily they’re quite happy to busily scurry around on a Saturday afternoon buying all this crap or the whole economy would be in a lot more trouble than it is. Meanwhile, I’ve managed to spend 1.60 on a cup of coffee and sit here using wifi for several hours without getting moved just yet. Later, I’ll use one of my free cinema tickets and try to keep my spending for the day limited to the two albums and some wifi. Dunno if it’ll last. I’m trying to think more about spending on random crap because I do a lot of that and it’s really not helping anyone. I was reminded this week how much I rely on little bits of plastic when I had trouble with my credit card again (the bank thought my spending pattern was once again “unusual” – when am I ever considered normal?) while at dinner with a friend. It took many days and forms to pay my Dutch travel agent after that got flagged as odd. I do hope the bank won’t annoy me for too much longer or I’ll have to go somewhere else – and they’re all as bad as oneanother anyway.
On Thursday, I went to Amersham with some other guys from the RUMC (Reading University Mountaineering Club) and got my level 2 card from them – in Amersham speak, that means I can now belay and top rope on their walls unsupervised. Yay! I did a bit of bouldering and some climbing with one of the other guy’s gear. I need to get myself a dynamic rope, a locking carabiner, a harness and that kind of thing. Probably should also talk to Tom about this if I ever get through to him (he’s over in Japan and I keep thinking about calling him when it would be really inconvenient on him) but meh, hopefully I’ll also get to meet up when/if I go to Tokyo. I’ve spoken to a few friends about climbing Snowdon at the beginning of October (I don’t want to leave it too late) and generally am going to try to also go climbing at least once a week from now on. I’ve got to work on my finger strength – maybe it’ll also help me with my violin technique. Looks like I will need to head over to Cotswold Outdoor for gear – one of the girls at the club works there and others have recommended them, but I’ll go check it out and let everyone who reads this know what I think about it.
Jon.