Result of an illness

I've been sick in bed with the 'flu all weekend and it looks like I'll be here all of today too. I've been couging and spluttering and generally feeling sorry for myself. It's not a great look - whenever I go near a mirror I scare myself back into bed because my hair is just so crazed. It sticks out at odd angles and in weird patterns that make me wonder how exactly I cause them; how do I sleep in such odd ways?

I'm not too pleased about being sick, but there's nothing I can do except stay in bed and sweat it out. Anyway, the supposed changes that were coming, will be a little later since I haven't been able to work on them. So keep calm and wait. It'll be worth it when its done.

A certain stillness

There's reduced activity on the home front; there's a stillness in the air that makes one wonder if a major assault is imminent. Change is coming and things will look different soon. Changes are coming.

wasting time

I woke up two hours early today, long before my appointed hour, for a class that has now been cancelled for not apparent reason; perhaps the lecturer simply couldn't face it this morning. The worst thing about it, having to sit next to the wet drips who are the Biology students in this place - it's like talking to a defrosting fridge - slow, morose, cold and unaware.

Crushed worshippers

In a tragic turn of events, a party of worshippers set fire to shops surrounding a Hindu temple 150 miles south of Bombay yesterday, after they heard news that relatives and loved ones had been earlier trampled to death.
The incident occurred after an earlier festival event went awry when participants slipped and fell on spilt coconut juice, a part of the ceremony, then were trampled to death by some of the 300,000 strong crowds pushing forwards to make their own religious offerings. When their relatives heard that the events had been fatal they set fire to nearby structures, resulting in a further stamped and the loss of over 250 lives.

"The fires were set along a packed, narrow walkway lined with tea stalls and shops leading up a hill to the temple. They set off what witnesses said was a stampede of screaming crowds fleeing in horror.

Though his leg was injured in the stampede, Yerunkar, a 45 year old pilgrim from Bombay, said he helped pull 15 people alive from a mound of bodies. "But I couldn't find my wife Nirmala. I kept shouting for her,'' he said, weeping uncontrollably.

His wife of 22 years was among the dead. Yerunkar fainted when he identified her body at the Wai hospital."

-The Malaysia Star


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Hello? This is room service

It was a courtesy call; I knocked on the door of a friend of mine, down the corridor in my dorm. It's just after 10 o'clock in the morning so I assumed it was safe to think that she'd either be awake and working or gone into University already.
Much to my surprise, a wail comes from behind the door, a plea for peace that astounded me with it breadth,

"Can you give me like... thirty minutes?"

Uninspiring choices

It's being reported today that the forthcoming film adaptation of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code will star Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

Reuters is reporting that the director of A Beautiful Mind, Ron Howard will also direct this movie. Whilst Howard is an interesting choice, bound to create the necessary tapestry of storylines that weave the tale to a conclusion, the heavy style of Tom Hanks and his recent over use in Hollywood productions, will offset the tone of the film.

Tautou's delicate style is the one redeeming feature - she's a wildcard in the mix that may save the production from being a standard laborious thriller. Her skill in leading the camera is perfect for a mystery of this nature and hopefully her abilities will make the film, but Tom Hanks still rankles. Though he may be an adept director, as shown in Band of Brothers, he should take a break from pressuring the public with high profile, low intelligence movies.

Have some fortitude!

Just as Chrisafer was yesterday asking the US Democrats to have some sort of backbone, today the UK press is asking the 'New Labour' government to hold firm on their immigration stance. The Conservative party, in a desperate attempt to swing right-wing voters back towards their fold, have been calling for caps on the numbers of asylum seekers allowed into the country each year, and swift ("but fair") return to their home country, the country they'd been fleeing.

"It's not racist, as some people claim, to talk about controlling immigration - far from it. It is plain common sense - a vastly underrated quality in British politics today."

My question is this; why is it that I really don't care that the British are being their usual racist selves, why does it all seem so insignificant. When politics swings into action on a European scale, on a US scale - when decisions really affect thousands of people, I begin to care. Now, it's just so small. If I'm reading news from across the globe, the xenophobia of a guy who only won 15 million votes doesn't matter to me; my interest isn't raised. Should I care?

Howard calls for strict immigration cap
Migrant madness

Speaking of improvements

This is yet another design. Forgive me the lack of style - I hand coded it and therefore, it's a bit raw. I'll do the graphics and prettiness over the next few days. I can't stand it looking quite so bare as it does at the moment. It all takes time. Time which I've spent today, but time which only produces limited results despite the hour. Not being a natural webdesigner, coding by hand (since Dreamweaver etc really doesn't work all that well with Blogger), takes me an extraordinarily long time.

By the end of the week, it'll look good.

Google makes me better

In reading through goodle's zeitgeist today, I came across a page in which the company details how the google websearch improves people's efficiency through correcting our spelling. The example they gave was that of Britney Spears, the ever present pop-princess. She was Google's number one search query for 2004 and apparently, some people still don't know how to spell her name, for there are thousands of people who had to have their searches corrected by the Google bot. Of course some of this is simply mistyping the new madonna's name, but some people evidently had never seen her name written down, or on a screen or whilst watching tv. There were 332 combinations of errors in spelling her name - and these are just the spellings that occurred when more than one person typed in the query.

1096 britiney spears
   991 britaney spears
   991 britnay spears
   811 brithney spears
   811 brtiney spears
   664 birtney spears
   664 brintney spears
   664 briteney spears
   601 bitney spears

how to spell brytni spears

Galvanize this!

The Chemical Brothers have released their next single on us, a huge dance track that is going to take over with its repetative beat and heavy bass. The video is crazy, shot with kids who look twelve years old, sneaking into a dance club with their faces painted like clowns. They run around the streets of the city and eventually infiltrate the club's impromptu freestyling competition on the dancefloor. It's crazy and busy and flashes by your eyes; perfect for the song, perfect for the sound.

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Spoon me

One of my most cherished friends from this place is leaving.
She's on her way home to another country, across oceans and miles of tundra, cold and heat, vast distances.

Perhaps I'll see her again, perhaps I won't. I hope we keep together. She's going to be married next year to a guy I haven't talked to her about; I know nothing about 'them' and don't know what it'll be like. I'm going to miss her a lot even though we never had a very deep or meaningful relationship.

Tonight, as a going away evening, we're going to get drunk and play Spoons in the bar. She's an expert at getting wasted and having a good time. I'm an expert in taking care of those who get wasted, whilst trying to not get drunk myself. Tonight, both of these activities will be a challenge.

Spoons; the language of silliness and childish play makes the most enjoyable evening wherever you are.

The Notebook: Russell Beattie

I'm really liking the trademark and copyright, technology and comment site by Russel Beattie. Perhaps I've missed something over that last few years but I've never heard of him, and I think he's great!

I hope I don't find something horrible on his site in a few days time, making me regret thinking I like him! I'm sure he's a dude.


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Also of note, I'm engrossed in a review of the iPod Shuffle, which I orderd a couple days ago, on iPodlounge.com. It's great - in depth and long but not overly pontificating; strangely unusual on the web!

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Ch-Ch-Ch Changes

Today is time for a new look. Every so often - especially when I use another computer and find that a feature I thought was working isn't - I snap into a 'new design mood'. Today is that day - and so we have a grey and green look for the site. It's a new mood and a new look and hopefully it'll not crash, have an annoying sidebar halfway down the page or falter when used by IE. For some reason I've had to delete all modifications from my sidebars for IE to understand them - it really doesn't make sense - the Internet Browser from On High seems to be rather picky and even more choosy about what elements of a site it renders correctly. On the other hand, Firefox and Safari have no problems! I don't know; I despaired and so didn't bother trying to fix it for more than an hour - I got fed up.
Now it's a different style that I'll muck around with once my computer's back up and running. For the moment, suffer in a Blogger-induced standard template. It works and doesn't glitch when doing nothing but its basic job: presenting the page.

"Enjoy now! Run along, don't diddle daddle on the road there children. Run! And Y'all have a good time won't you. Have a real good time"

Disconnected Aspirations

I have been, and will continue to be temporarily disconnected from the web for the moment. I'm in the midst of an Apple warranty-replacement operation since my Powerbook's power supply stopped working entirely a couple days ago, having been operating in fits and starts for a number of weeks. It gave up the ghost and so I'm now stuck with an empty battery and a lack of connection.
I've even resorted to buying a newspaper in hard copy to get some news; I was shocked by my own gaul!

Back soon, read BoingBoing or something instead - it seems like the 'fashionable' thing to do now, so, may as well stick with it since it now gets you credit on the blogging 'street'. I feel like the offspring of a bohemian family who've suddenly realised that what they've lived their whole life is, suddenly, intensely cool and desired by all. But in my situation I'm really just the friend of a bohemain offspring who gets a little cool rubbed off by association...
It's that mediocre level of cool that is so difficult to aspire to!

Comment posts

I'm really sorry if you've commented on the site and not had a reply - there's some crazy stuff been going on with my email link that sends me commetns whenever they're posted. Normally I don't actually read my own site (since I kind of know what's on there already) and so I hadn't seen that people were commenting when I didn't know about it. Hopefully it won't continue; I've changed things around a bit.

Anyway, that's all really, so I've been going through the comments, reading.
So I know you're there if you were there! Thanks for the input everyone!


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Today's pearl of wisdom

My memory gets worse every time I try to use it.

Want to know about porno in... Italy?

In researching my paper on the political systems in Europe I somehow stumbled across this site that documents the status of various sexual issues in various countries around the world. It's the most detailed and, to be honest, fascinating read.

"A recent public opinion survey (Buzzi 1998) shows that most young Italians have a more severe judgment about the clients than about the prostitutes. Prostitution, however, is seen above all as a problem of public order, and 64.7 percent of young people agree with the idea of reestablishing brothels. Moreover, the majority of young men do not exclude the possibility of going with prostitutes."

Sexology of Italy

The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality

Oscar

I'm doing an essay on Democracy now, and whilst looking for inspiration I came across this quote by Oscar Wilde; a unique interpretation on Abraham Lincoln's famous line.

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the poeple by the people for the people."

It didn't inspire... me but it gave me at least of moment of respite from the utter boredom of writing.

It's too early to talk

I've just finished re-writing an essay for my Politics course. The title is:

To what extent are immigration and asylum policies the main reason for the growth in electoral support for extreme right parties?

I wrote a good draft of it about a month ago but had decided that the draft was simply too badly written to hand in. So I've gone through it all over again and rewritten the whole thing, with all the references re-jigged and everything sorted. I sat down again to work on it at 10 PM after looking at other work all day, and then I worked through the night.
I'm on the top floor of our house and the rain is buffeting the Victorian structure like it's trying to push the whole building over. I feel like a bubble of light amidst the darkness. Everyone else is asleep and I'm all alone typing away in the sodium-swathed brightness.

And just as I finished, as I completed the last section of tedious and longwinded formatting, a song came on over my headphones. Thomas Newman's theme to American Beauty with its calm stillness and tranquility caught my mood and now I'm sitting in the brightness, surrounded by wind and rain, listening to the sounds of beauty.

Happy New Year from Japan

Over New Years, when we were all away skiing we got messages from our amazing friend M in Tokyo. She was calling to wish us Happy New Year and her voice remains one of the most contemplative, sad and yet friendly sounds I think I've ever heard.


I was struck by the sound, and so now I glorify it by making it available to everyone:


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Susan Sontag passes by

"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilisation' or 'liberty' or 'humanity or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?"

Susan Sontag died in New York City of cancer, on December 28 2004. She was 71.

Doodles

I try and sit down to do some work and the thoughts just run out of my head. This feels like the worst part of taking an exam but I'm not even taking an exam. I took a load of work down to the South when I was with my Grandparents in the vain hope that something would get done but that came to nothing. I even took work with me skiing but I was so exhausted each day that there was no hope of focusing afterwards.
Now, in the predictable gulley that is the post New Years lull I'm stuck trying to work but finding I'm failing at it. I love working but somehow at the moment I can't. And I have to finish polishing one essay and write two others by Monday.

And move cities somewhere in the meantime.

No chance of doing a good job, simply no chance.

Death comes too close

I wasn't close to the pain of the anguish and suffering in South East Asia, I haven't been affected by loss recently and I've only known one person who's died in my life. But people lose their loved ones, those close to them and I can still relate. Whole communities have been washed away and there is no way of really comprehending it - they're simply gone and what was there is now merely rubble leaving people in need. I was reading some poetry by Walt Whitman today, and came across this which I think clearly expresses a feeling, a feeling of contemplation:

"What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

-Walt Whitman

from the work "Leaves of Grass", sometimes called "A child said What is the grass?" and othertimes called "Song of Myself".


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Settling in

I went skiing for a week, and now I'm back from skiing and everything looks the same.

At only one other time in my life have I had to use my calves so much... and he knows who he is. At one point on Saturday afternoon I had to just ski halfway down the mountain and sit on a bench for an hour or so, in the middle of the day, because I was too exhausted to keep going at it. Consolation prize - it seems I can still ski after an eight year hiatus and now my legs are back on the road to being toned again - here's to week long workouts!