Christmas morning

It's 10:20 on Christmas morning and everyone's emergimg after a late night last night. My mother walked into where I was sleeping to greet me but, having woken up earlier to put out stockings, I was exhausted.
My state of awareness is only notable because I was reeling from the horrific and bloody nightmare I was waking up from.

And the nightmare was so clear and real that for a moment, my fake smile, my fake happiness was the best I could muster. And this on Christmas morning.

--
Sent from my Treo

They so yearn to be gay.

I have been and will be in Bath for the past few days and the next few days. In case you don't know, Bath is a little city in the Ssouth of England, about an hour and a half by train from Central London. It's the playtoy of the quietly wealthy from the Greater London region. Think of the Hamptons but a city. And tall thin houses made of sandstone. The man behind the name, Manolo Blahnik, lives here. It's that kind of place; the boys all have trust funds and the girls all have rhinoplastys.

Since all the well-to-do boys and girls of the town have more money than they know what's good for them, they were out in force today, whilst I wandered about from shop to shop, meandering home from the hospital. What eye candy. The boys in GAP prescribed v-neck layering with chunky scarves, and the girls in uber low cut jeans and gilets. It was a television commercial shoot but without the campy director or the go-go girls making a mess in the distance.

The one thought that struck me was, with they waxed eyebrow, cropped hair, modelled wardrobe and textbook girlfriend, all these boys want now is to be gay. It's the ultimate status symbol of the times - though they'd have a bit of trrouble explaining it to mommy, it'd fit in with their continual grooming and the pretty boy look. Because they are pretty, don't get me wrong, but switching teams, batting 'for the other side' would really make them complete, would circle the square and would make their whole existance finally make some sense!

IE; Screw you.

So I decide not to leave this mind-dump of mine alone for a few days, I decide to update and keep with it. I wish I hadn't - now I know of a problem I was unaware of before, a problem I didn't want to know about.

All day today I've been fixing my grandfather's computer, and in my boredom I decided to look at what the blog appears like for everyone else. Egads! Not nice - my whole sidebar which looks beautiful and 'together' in my Safari browser, looks great on my 21" at home and looks fine everywhere else I've ever look at the site, looks terrible here. It's all squished down the bottom of the page. I'll have to look at the code when I get home.

I'll be there for all of eight hours before heading off to France so I don't have a huge amount of hope for any improvement.

I can only say sorry to you if it's looked this bad all the time! Sorry.

Governor battles

They're still fighting to have a human in office to lead Washington state.

The Governor battle has taken an ever-more dramatic turn after the lead in the vote re-count has swapped party sides and has gone to the Democrats, with a miniscule ten vote lead. Whilst the 'final' result from this round of recounts will certainly not be accepted outright, this remains an important development if only for the psychological boost it will provide for the Democrats.

from the NY Times:      "After a bitter and protracted recount fight in the Washington state governor’s race, elections officials announced today that the Democratic candidate, Christine O. Gregoire, was now leading her Republican opponent by a miniscule margin of only 10 votes, a stunning reversal of the Nov. 2 election results.
The days events were a serious blow to Dino Rossi, 45, a real estate executive and former state senator, who had been certified the winner of the Nov. 2 vote, after eking out a margin of 261 votes out of almost 3 million cast. He later won a machine recount by only 42 votes. "

link

Male Bonding

I'm at my cousins house, in the lead up to Christmas, and for the first time ever really, we're hanging out. We're doing the 'male bonding' thing that so many straight guys seem to accomplish without feeling self-conscious, without self analysis. I in turn, can't do it without analyzing the situation, but that doesn't forgo my enjoyment of it.

We're just kicking around whilst my cousins, who like to be cool whilst I relish in being decidedly uncool, smoke cigarettes from their window ledge and yet allow most of the smoke straight back inside. We listen to bad music from our laptops and lounge around in front of the space heater that blows a stream of hot air across the room, just like the hot air I'm blowing...

I'm having a whale of a time!

Marshmallow man

Trying on all the assorted skiing stuff that I've managed to collect over the last couple days, I being to realise that my appearance is taking on the impression of a blimp. I'm going to have to slim down on the bulk - I'm skiing, not rolling down a scree slope without any protection.

Plus, my sisters were commenting the other day, saying how with my 'tiny ass' I'l have to gain weight for the trip - otherwise I'll come out in bruising from falling down all the time. I refrained from the "honey, there's nothing this ass hasn't taken" comment because, well there's a lot this ass hasn't taken; if that's not going to far.

See the line, watch the line, just go right over the line. Yes, that was too far. Look, that's the line way behind you, far in the distance only barely visible on the horizon.

Off to Avon

My Grandmother went into hospital again last Wednesday, and since it's the runup to Christmas and I have time to spare before jetting off to the Alps for a week of skiing, I'm going down to help out. It doesn't sound so good when you say it like that - that one is going to help before holidaying.

But she's in hospital with Bronchitis and at her age that's really not good. So I'm going to go and hang out with my Grandfather and attempt to occupy his time. We'll obsess about his windows XP machine that has post it notes stuck all around the edge of the screen telling him passwords and links and instructions. We'll lay a carpet from their home in Worcester 20 years ago and we'll move furniture around in an attempt to make sure I can't move my back at all for skiing during the following week.

It'll be amusing.

And of course, there'll be Christmas.

Hmmm, unsettling.

I don't expect many people to read about the randomness that interests me, the news and reviews that I find intriguing, and as a result, few do. To my great dismay, whilst going trough my out of date posts that my RSS reader collects, I find that I was mentioned on a massive site. Not by URL, but by name. Not by URL because that would be weird and would drive traffic away from the original site, and since it's commercial that's bad. Although I did laugh, quite literally, out loud when I saw the post because I knew it had to be me that he read it from, and yet the lack of the "a href" code made sense. I understood the psychology and it cracked me up.

Just so you know, thanks Joel.

MOMA digi

Frank Kolodziej, a big shot in Yahoo, has a website that documents a load of the photos he takes seemingly just 'around'. There's nothing else on the site, but because the images are large and detailed, it's an engrossing viewing. Head on down, the link below is deep into the site - to some images from the MoMA in NYC, but it's all good.

link

All That for Nothing

In a piece for The Stranger, Nate Lippens reveals, with numerous hard-hitting, terrifying and poignant comments, how the with the demise of the AIDS awareness of the 80's, the spread of HIV is being truly allowed by older generations' reluctance to get involved, to get in the way and to get hurt.

With the pain of losing friends to the virus still clear, it's easier to step back and be silently disapproving, but this doesn't help those on the receiving end of the dangerous diseases, the unsafe practices and the 'you're positive' diagnosis. Now is the time to stand up once more and be loud, be offensive but be heard.

"Over the last half decade my exasperation with gay culture made me finally turn away. My friendships had become based more in common interests and cocksucking didn't rank high on that list. But as friends and acquaintances started testing positive again I realized that my post-gay stance was postmortem.

Maybe it was like the mob: You try to get out but they pull you back in. I realized that telling people that unsafe sex is careless and stupid isn't being moralistic; it's being realistic."

link

Man of the Year?

The Drudge Report

has a headline today, just as is shown above, accompanying a photograph of George Bush, declaring him "Man of the Year". I wouldn't care if such a rabidly right wing, pretending-to-be-objective, source such as Matt Drudge declared his love for GW Bush as long as he didn't do it with a photo that shows Bush next to Churchill and Roosevelt. These two men were genuine leaders - they united their countries through times of extreme fear, grief and uncertainty, pulling them through the consequences of a world war that cost the lives of over 60 Million men. Bush has thrown his country into uncertainty through unjustified spending, currency devaluation, job losses and a foreign policy that alienates the rest of the Western world as well as involves invading two unstable countries.

To place Bush next to Roosevelt and Churchill is an insult to the achievements and leadership qualities of those men, men who united rather than divided and men who thought rather than merely reacted. Action is no good if unfocused and unjustified; don't pretend that Bush is either of these things.

UPDATE: Now it seems they've changed it to 'Time Man of the Year' - as though Drudge doesn't wholeheartedly agree. Sneaky. Of course it's only Time magazine that thinks he's great.... yeah.

Chatty Chatty Bang Bang

J: Is that your phone or mine?

P: What?

J: The beeping - is that your phone or mine?

P: Must be yours - I can't hear anything.

J: Well if it cuts out, I'll call you back alright.

-------------

P: J? J? Ok, so your phone's gone. I'm talking to no-one.

Animated Sunset

Animated Sunset
Originally uploaded by Pandarine.

Now view a sunset in some place across the world, who knows where, on a golf course I don't know under a sky I'll never see. But see the sunset in motion and watch as the clouds change, crawlling across the sky.

It's beautiful.

Place the states

Can you accurately place the US states on the map?
This site makes you drag and drop an outline of each state into the correct place. I averaged 82% correct and and my average number of miles that I placed the states away from where they were supposed to be was 58 miles. Not all that bad I don't think. Could be better though!


link

Now where exactly is Nebraska?

Dioxin problems

I did some reading into what exactly dioxins are, the chemical that Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with. I didn't know anything about Agent Orange, herbicide clearance, or Dow Chemical until I read this; it's worth the time.

"Dioxins are some of the most toxic chemicals known to science. Dioxin is a general term that describes a group of hundreds of chemicals that are highly persistent in the environment. The most toxic compound is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. The toxicity of other dioxins and chemicals like PCBs that act like dioxin are measured in relation to TCDD. Dioxin is formed as an unintentional by-product of many industrial processes involving chlorine such as waste incineration, chemical and pesticide manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching. Dioxin was the primary toxic component of Agent Orange, was found at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY and was the basis for evacuations at Times Beach, MO [as detailed below] and Seveso, Italy."

- Environmental Justice Network

"Disposal of the dioxin contaminated materials was a huge problem to the company. They initially send the still bottoms to Louisiana for incineration, which is still be best way to destroy dioxin, but it was expensive. It then contracted its chemical supplier, Independent Petrochemical Corporation, for disposal. Independent then subcontracted Russell Bliss to haul the waste away. Later, during the Times Beach investigations, it was revealed that NEPACCO knew of the dioxins in the waste but some how this information was not passed on to Independent or to Bliss. The investigation also found that the contaminated clay and water had also mysteriously found their way into the local environment.


The contaminated clay was the easiest to trace. Most of them were buried on location in the plant itself. Some were disposed in a dump that was later transformed into a park and the rest was sold to unsuspecting farmers to spread on the ground under the assumption that it would prevent hoof root in cattle. Some of these contaminated clays were subsequently washed into the nearby Spring River in a flood in 1982. This however was not the first time that dioxin had entered the local food chain."

- Brandeis University, MA


The Times beach Investigation - Brandeis University, MA
Times Beach - Wikipedia
Dioxin Information links

Finding a vein on the train

Finding a vein on the train
Originally uploaded by BombDog.

Not my photo, not my subject, not my work. However, it's still an amazing story, an amazing shot and beautifully done. Through the flickr beta photo software I've come across a wealth of new images, of stunning shots and real talents. This photographer is one of them and the photograph, showing two drug users whilst they attempt to find a vein on a busy commuter train, oblivious to those around them.

Chet

NPR's announcer has just mentioned the stroke suffered by former Chillean General and leader Augusto Pinochet. However, they pronounced it PinoCHET as in Chet Baker. I can't believe how dumb odd some people are... Eurgh.

NPR's announcer has just mentioned the stroke suffered by former Chillean General and leader Augusto Pinochet. However, they pronounced it PinoCHET as in Chet Baker. I can't believe how dumb odd some people are... Eurgh.

Time zone trouble

My brain thinks it's 6:30 AM, whilst my watch says it's 12:30PM, my mind is on a time zone of a continent I'm not even near.
I feel like I need some artificial enhancement to bring my brain back to GMT and closer to the three parties I'm supposed to be participating in this afternoon.

I took two pills to knock me out last night, in a vain attempt to get to sleep. And whilst I listened to NPR, being sent via my wireless connection two floors away, via the internet, via a Seattle Public Radio station I thought:

WTF?!?

Gotta love the name: Ana Matronic

I LOVE the Scissor Sisters, and want to do Jake Shears like he's never been done before.

"...one time I passed out on the cold, bare floor in front of the British Airways counter at Heathrow for three hours. Another time, we were on a plane after a show in Germany. The turbulence was terrible and we were bouncing and dipping all over the damn place. Ana was just sitting in her chair repeating the word 'bathtub' over and over again to herself. She says she read somewhere that you're more likely to die in the bath than on an aeroplane."

OMM article: How we stormed 2004 by Jake Shears
..:: Scissor Sisters ::..

If you want to go have drinks with him in January - you can bid on it for roughly 16 hours: be quick!
Drinks with Jake Shears

Swim Team Jocks

At Mercer Island High School, just across the water from Seattle, it's no big deal that the water polo team poses for an annual nearly-nude calendar. In fact, they celebrate the fact and use the money raised by the fantasy-laced product to support their team. All I can say, this is my kind of calendar.

""It's boys in Speedos, what's the big deal?" the MIHS receptionist said, before handing this reporter off to the athletic department. Ann Meisner, the Athletics and Facilities Coordinator, chuckled at the idea that the water polo calendar was controversial. "It's a pretty fun calendar, and those teenage girls really like it," she says."

link

The Post-Christmas bash has started

Shopping today, buying little gifts and chocolates; stocking fillers and tat.

The item of note: SALE signs.
16th December, nine days from Christmas and we've already started the sales.
Business must be terrible or someone's going nuts in their company headquarters.

Dirty sex talk

I talked with a guy online yesterday that I 'met' from Gaydar, the gay chat/dating service online on which every member of the out gay population of the UK has a profile, and I felt dirty. I'm such a prude, but I didn't like talking to someone I know nothing about other than a false, pretentious piece of fluff propaganda that he writes up to seduce people.
So I said I had to go, and then blocked his MSN profile.

Unexpected release

-------------------------------------------------------------

Tampax have decided to replace the string on their
tampon with tinsel... just for the Christmas period.

-------------------------------------------------------------

awful jokes via Popbitch

16thandmission.com

A map/urban environment exploration site from San Francsisco that aims to interlink images and scenes from the city with live data such as bus arrivals has created a surreal and yet strangely engrossing Flash site. Check it out.

"This project is an investigation into the interplay of data, interactivity and narrative in an urban environment. It takes as its focus the corner of 16th and Mission Streets in San Francisco.

Live data from the NextBus system, which tracks realtime bus schedules in San Francisco and other cities, is read into this interface every thirty seconds. The size of the orange and green arrows indicates how long it will be before the next bus arrives at the two stations visible on the map. When new data is received, the arrows change size, and a deep tone is heard."

link

New favorite?

I must point out my new tie in the favorite-site-of-all-time awards. Up there with boingboing for crazy whacked out posts comes treehugger, a site that attempts to be the metafilter for alternative and ecological news and technologies. Check out the tram line covered in grass, the crazy looking lights and the t-shirt made out of fermented Corn husks.

treehugger.com

Preschool chef

I made a tarte today. I'm not quite sure how it's going to turn out. After I finished it I realised I should have, perhaps, arranged the apple in some way, rather than just throwing it together. I'm sure it'll taste fine, it just looks rather random...
I'm liking the caramelisation of the apple though, I made an infusion of apple sauce, sugar, ground clove and mace in order to create a sort of base for the apple and raisin to mix with. With the heat of the oven, the tops of the apple have caramelised yet haven't burnt because the moisture from the base keeps from drying out.

Perfect!

On a related note, since I've been home from school in Leeds I haven't had any random indulgent food to eat like that which I buy when living with... myself. This is why I lose weight whilst at home. So today, to rectify this awful situation, I accompanied my younger sister and whilst on our random tour of stores, I picked up a load of brownies from a bakery. Now anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a brownie fiend. I could easily finish them all by daybreak, but I'm going to control myself and 'only' eat one a day. I have to keep my health up!
Silly how happy the fact that I have comfort food on hand again makes me. Yummmmmm.

Flying across Millau

Today (Tuesday 14 December) was the inauguration of the highest bridge in the world. The 390 million euro project will be operated as a toll road for (a minimum) 75 years by construction giant Eiffage. The bridge will act as a new route to the south of France and Spain from Northern regions and is expected to carry 10,000 vehicles daily though will peak at 25,000 trucks and holidaymakers daily during the summer tourist season. Foster has said that driving across the bridge should feel like "flying a car".
The Tarn region is highlighted in the map, left. Jaques Chirac was the host of the ceremony for the 885ft high bridge in the Tarn Valley of France's Midi Pyrénées region. The bridge, designed by British Architect Norman Foster consists of a four lane, 1.6 mile (2.4km), viaduct over the Tarn Valley. At 343 metres, the tallest of the seven pylon-topped pillars is higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris which wallows 20 metres below. As the birthplace of the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, the Tarn valley makes it clear where the artist may have come across inspiration.

Chauvinist Pig Says 'Go gays'

"The next quirk they came across was health insurance. As it so happened, the birth mother's health insurance coverage was not as robust as the her partner's insurance. You know how that goes, better job and all that, right? Well the baby's medical coverage could not be claimed against this better policy for obvious reasons -- she wasn't legally the child's parent. So this ended up costing them a lot of money out of pocket for medical expenses, and there were even some areas where the child didn't get the same level of care as she could have if she had been covered under the better insurance policy. Again, it seemed unfair not only to the parents financially, but to the baby in regards to her health care.

All these issues because same sex marriages are currently illegal. Okay. So let me think for a minute, that if they were legal, how would they effect my life. Would I have to pay more taxes? No. Would married gay people get a special check out line at the supermarket to get through line faster than me? No. Do they get their own special lane to avoid traffic jams? No. Do they get cheaper car insurance? No. Free car? No. Free socks? No.

So my question would be... what the fuck do I care if gay people want to be married?"

ehowa.com link

Noun or Verb

Whilst going back in time, (and my RSS reader's history) I come across the story of Bill Gate's spam problems. He gets four Million spam emails a day, and since I thought that interesting the first time I read it, I was still interested in reading about it from another news source, to get a different perspective. This leads me to a slashdot post about the issue, and in the middle of the conversation thread comes a comment on the usage of the work leverage.

I love that people on the net are so random that they feel that it makes sense to lecture one another on the word - sum up: try the word 'use' instead... I really liked the comment, as I've never knowingly used the word to date and now I can, and do it right! It's strange how excited that makes me.

"If you're going to be picky about language, I feel obliged to point out that "leverage" is a noun, not a verb. "Leverage" is the action of a lever. It's a naming word, not a doing word. Compare with "use" and "usage". To avoid mistakes, every time you are tempted to use the word "leverage" (sales presentations, TPS reports, pillow talk etc), substitute the word "use" instead. It should become obvious which are the cases when "leverage" is the correct choice."

link

They sure know how to pick 'em

""If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them," wrote Bob Jones III, president of the eponymous South Carolina university, to President Bush after the election. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil.""

My University really has a knack at choosing wholly inappropriate colleges for students to exchange with in the US. Coming from one of the most liberal places in the UK, going to the University of South Carolina, or the Catholic University of America (as Pol Sci students do in DC) is not perhaps the most obvious placing. I can't believe just how out of left-field these choices are; there seems to be no basis for why we'd choose them other than a singular lack of research.
I just hope I can pick somewhere for myself - if even the Times doesn't like your college, there's something going wrong.


SCU
NYTimes article

Gay story book characters are a threat

Simone points me to this link about the Alabama State Representative who is introducing a bill, with George Bush's blessing, that outlaws the use of state funds for purchasing books that 'promote homosexuality'. So there's not going to be a copy of Tony Kushner's Angels in America coming to your public library soon if Gerald Allen gets his way.

"Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go."

The Guardian story

The Library Journal is equally blistering, quoting:

Showing a tenuous understanding of the Constitution, an Alabama legislator has proposed a bill that would block the use of public funds...

[Books would] have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he told the Birmingham News

If you like what he has to say, if you don't like what he has to say, either way; here's his own website where he provides contact information:

Representative Gerald Allen

In the meantime, this story has also got a lot of local news coverage from within Alabama and outside, much of it against Allen's position. Thankfully even the normally rabid Fox news has come out with a not too favorable stance on the matter. Below are some links, which are worth a read - they're enlightening. Links go straight to the story.

Google news search: "Gerald Allen"

Andalusia Star News

Agape Press

Colorado State Collegian

New Standard News

The Empty Closet

Library Journal

'SlAmMinN' the shit.

I may be snobbish, I may be rude, but right now I'm really not caring.
A few days ago MSN Spaces was launched and I posted a little review, blurb about it at the time (link) and I wasn't overly impressed.

Today I thought I'd catch up and see what some of the people who've signed up to the idea have done with their spaces. Most users haven't posted much, haven't gone deep into the possibilities. However, I think the direction some of the users have gone shows how this service is going ot be used. It's not going to be a serious laternative to MT, Livejournal, Blogger or EE, but will be an off-the-cuff place to post thoughts about the latest IM conversation and today's purchase at the mall.
Of course I've been guilty of thses things in my weaker moments here, but I try and keep myself in check. I'm not confident anyone on 'Spaces' will edit themselves in the same way.


Hobbies:

" ~ Kayaking ~ Going round daniels! :P ~ FIT boyz ;) e.g Daniel♥ ~ ♪ "Baby all i want is you!!! ♪ ~ Cutie in da house Safe! ~ Enjoy boys n everything that comes wit dem ;)♥ ~ U have 2 be in it 2 win it! ~"What goes up must come down"♥"


~ Im da 1 in da white in ma piccy. ~ I have Brown/Blonde hair Brown eyes i kayak and do weights 4 my training as well as circuits. ~ ♥Im a Cutie!! always n 4eva! ♥ ~ 100% Hyper b"tch! ~ SURFING RULES! ~ Aloha ~ Megzy ma bessie!

DREAMERHOODSUP - photos of him looking 'tuff'
♥AℓωαysSurfiиgßαßℓiиα♥ - learn how not to spell - great example above.
Kriminal House - great for illegal software keys
Ashley's Space - nothing here!

It's a sorry collection, but then that's what it was supposed to be. MSN Spaces won't go far, won't be anything and even if it's 'user numbers' far outweigh those of the competition anyone with a substantive thought to add to the public discourse will soon see that their time is better spent with a service that has a professional feel that doesn't retain copyright on your ideas.

Cook a Cow?

My mother bought a meat thermometer the other week, and whilst stumbling around the house today I just noticed the graphic on it. In a slightly gory way, the device tells 'the chef' what temperature is best for cow, sheep, lamb and pig. I've never stuck a whole cow in my oven before, but the idea crossed my mind when reading the dial. Imagine serving that on a platter...

Grinding into the wall

I was supposedly dancing like I was on Ecstasy tonight, not that I've actually ever been on Ecstasy. The whole of my dorm (well, about 50 people) went out to a club tonight en mass. We had a crazy time, and as the token gay boy I took full advantage and danced with all the hot girls in the place. I supposedly grinded one girl into a wall for about five minutes - she however, fully participated, so the whole thing was rather justified.

I was busy doing other people's work until twenty minutes before we were due to leave so I had to get drunk VERY fucking quickly. Luckily, Vodka is very good at doing this and I took full advantage - lets just say I had at least two glasses full of vodka before going out, skipping most of the mixer.

I'm completely FCUCKED now - but then most people are too. Every line I type I have to retype about five times because my fingers slur over the keys.

I cut a load of one finger off earlier whilst cooking a friend of mine lunch, so the bandaging doesn't help my typing anyway.

So yeah, good night despite the weird homo boy who kept on trying to dance with me. He was ugly and he was trying to get me whilst in a straight club. I'm thinking, 'COME ON, you can do better than that!' but he just keeps going. So I ignore him and dance with some other hot girl, and then another hot guy... Choices choices.
Consolation prize - I got to feel up the hot gay boy who I just 'happened' to sit next to on our highly eventful bus-ride home. Buses can be great, especially when they're slow and you're sitting next to a fox.

Vodka's great.

Every time.

Stupid Dogs!

Caught this snippet in the Guardian today...

"Airport officers face discipline

France's interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, vowed to punish bomb squad officers who planted explosives in a airline passenger's luggage to test sniffer dogs and lost the 150g bar, still missing after three days. Reuters, Paris "

Slightly alarming perhaps. And the dogs I was talking about are the canines, not the French, if for some reason anyone got the wrong idea...

Shoot.

On Saturday night one of my best friends accompanied me to an underground parking garage at one of this city's many Universities for the last session of recording for an R&B music video.

The 'artist' was a guy called something like Warm Ice 2K, but that's just a guess. We couldn't remember his stage name - it's too much hassle when it's as idiotic a name as that - his real name was Ryan. As a cool bar/background club filler tune it was great, but nothing too stand out. The song was a kind of production heavy, synthetic beats concoction that record companies come up with for their stars to include on albums as filler tracks. It was nice in an inoffensive, inattentive, who-really-cares kind of way. But nothing special.



We had a laugh though, standing around in the background 'grooving' alone after being asked to 'have a good time' when the camera was on us. I presumed that we didn't need to have a good time when the camera wasn't on us, so during our off moments we sulked and wailed into our hankies with self-pitying dispair.

Alice and I ate Jaffa cakes, giggled at ourselves and marvelled at the lunatic styling of the pumped-up The Fast and the Furious style cars that were the backdrop for the video. I had to laugh though when we noticed how the mixing deck that had been set up on one wall of the set was in fact a complete fake and they had to play the track (for dancing and miming purposes) from the insanely-huge speakers installled in one car's rear. The car bounced with the vibrations.

Note the flames coming from the exhaust of the car here. And the guy doing his camera work didn't even notice...
Toasty!

College Photographer of the Year

"Sexual Tension"

Untitled


Spears bends over and rests on his knees, exhausted after finally finishing a sex scene, while Hall pulls down her skirt and walks away.

The 59th College Photographer of the Year awards have been announced following judging at University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri. Whilst Rick Gershon of the University of North Texas won overall Gold, there are some amazing images in all categories of the competition. Check it out, stunning array of images ranging from LA porn industry to Bangladesh rain-storms to Kentucky poverty. The links at the top of the linked page direct you to those photographers placed below Gershon's Gold award.

CPoY.org

link

In other news...

We must protect world cabbage prices, a critical issue because of the 'mountains' of stockpile cabbage(!):

"It is proven that the previous measures of government controlling all market behaviours, from production, sales to consumption, result in low effectiveness. Farmers, together with other economic players, have suffered a lot under such a system.

From this perspective, the price of cabbage, the same as other commodities, should be decided by the yield and the farmers should take the market risks. The government's interference in pricing might lead to a waste of resources.

Then, how to deal with the mountains of cabbage stockpiled at farms?"

link

'The Environment: too expensive'

"Western governors gathered last week to plan with the Bush administration and Congress how to change the Endangered Species Act, the 31-year-old law they say has cost developers, loggers and ranchers too much money and hassle for the few animals brought back from the brink of extinction.

"We have to recognize that, A, we can't protect everything, and B, we have to carefully examine whether we should try to protect everything, and at what cost," Manson said last year."

What point is there in preserving the wildlife of the world when we can build roads and houses over vast swathes of hour heritage, for that is what the environment is, our heritage. When we go down the path of considering it more benificial to create a new logging path than to preserve the continued existence of a unique species population, or think that we would prefer to have more factories than wildlife we lose our collective history. We can't allow further cuts into the country, raping the wildlife for short-term, purely economic gain.
Don't support it, and if you live in the US, contact your congressman to make your views known.


Seattle/LA Times article
US Congress

Margaret's Rates

Margaret Cho is in London at the moment and coincidentally I'm in London next weekend too, but I won't be going. She's outageous and hilarious but she's also highly priced. When the tickets start at £27, there's not a lot I can do but laugh from afar. She's funny but I can't do that.

I hate being a student sometimes; I need a high paying, time low, resumé wothy job so I can do all the crazy overpriced events going on. I'm really bummed out by this - I'm a big fan of hers but just can't stretch to that. I don't think that complaining about a ticket that is in effect $50 is outrageous. It's not that those tickets are really expensive, but they're the cheapest ones in the house. I hope she sells out, at least that way there's a chance she'll be back, and hopefully next time at a bit of a discount.

EDNA MODE

"The Incredibles may be super, but Edna makes them look fabulous"

Edna mode visual character guide:
link

MSN Spaces

MSN have launched their own Blogging alternative into the field today. As a working 'beta' - that catch-all term that's supposed to make us forgive inadequate software design and mistakes in usability - the site links to MSN Messenger, Hotmail and all the other MSN 'channels'.

"MSN yesterday introduced a beta version of MSN Spaces, a new web logging service. It also released a beta version of MSN Messenger 7.0 and updates to MSN Hotmail. These services will be integrated, the company says.

MSN Spaces offers three levels of control over who may access their Space. It allows users to display their pictures in a slideshow, and share their music playlists. Visitors may sample or purchase tracks on the playlist."

- The Register

I assume that the only reason why a person would choose an MSN blog account would be the ease with which Microsoft will integrate it within their existing infrastructure. Those blogs that are most successful will be viewed by friends because they're publicised through a vast Messenger network, alerting all to the opportunity to read shallow insights into their friend's lives. To add insult to injury it's also incredibly slow...
My general instinct would be that no completely serious blog would use their system - it's too tied to the MSN brand. They want to own your blog, they want to be the real star of the show, rather than your hard work. Once you use a system like blogger or MT, one can't look at the MSN offering and think that it's a professional alternative. It's market is one of teens who want to tell their friends about the latest CD and about their new piercing.


I need some inconsistency - MSN

Cho Ho Ho

Margaret Cho is playing London!!

London!!

Wonderful, if only I could get to SEE her in London. Anyway, apart from that, she's interviewed on Woman's Hour this week; the normally cuddly show hosted by Jenni Murray seems twee and simply boring when someone as charasmatic as Margaret comes on. The interview's worth hearing though:
link

Meanwhile the Guardian, the liberal's paper of choice (and hence, mine!) says:

"Cho will restore your faith in the part of America that embraces difference, because she speaks for outsiders of every hue."

link

Tears

I connected my computer to my phone, linked them together for the first time since September.
I connected them and the moment that I pressed the button to sync, my photos from my summer, from my summer thoughts and experiences came FLOODING back. Pictures that I thought I'd lost forever when my phone wiped itself a few weeks ago, I now have back. One morning I awoke at around five AM to find that my alarm was going off and that my phone had formatted itself on its own somehow. I didn't know whether my laptop had backed up the photos and so I assumed it hadn't, I simply resigned myself to having lost them. I had a lot of emotional energy tied up with the thoughts and images that I'd saved on that phone and so to lose them was really quite hard.
Now though, they're back and I can look at them with a clear head and an impartial eye. I can think back and, not just going 'ahhh' for what I think I saw, now I can remember events in full. One thing I always think when I look at those photos, I look so unashamedly happy, so happy.

And when they came back I just sat there and cried at my desk - I didn't expect to get them back. I'd given up all hope and now I have them and now... well, I'm not happier that I'm less alone.

Bad Start

Before I even begin, I should say that always hate Wednesdays; they're exhausting and stressfull. I woke this morning to find that today is going to be a model Wednesday for all the usual reasons.

I'm late, I have a sore throat, my eyes ache, and my dreams are still with me. It seems that my sleeping thoughts had me driving a load of people's cars, managing to crash them, though I survived and had to deal with lying about how the cars get totalled.

Now I have to go and meet someone and explain how things aren't working between us.

Eugh.
Great start, just a great start.

Getting serious

I'm thinking of packing it in, of using a cliche, of turning over a new... page?

I've found a domain name that I want, have thought out a design for the site that I want to build, but now just have to work out what it'll use (ie Expression Engine or Movable Type).

There's one other clincher - subject. I really can't think what I want to write about now. I think there are plenty things to say, plenty topics I could focus on, but I don't know whether I'd be able to focus on just one idea, on just one subject.

I want a community site, a collective blog but I don't want it to be simply reposting other people's news, other site's stories. It's like journalism but the amateur kind, and yet without being amateur.

Tough cookie.

If anyone has a comment on this, email me.