Two Days of Photographs, and a Christmas.

I'm sure there's a song somewhere in that title.

Quote of the day:  'Burning bridges is never pleasant, but sometimes necessary.' - I just made it up, but it sounds authentic, right?

Scroll down for photo's of cats.


Anyway.  Hello internet.

Christmas passed (thankfully) uneventfully, with my present buying ineptitude forgotten quicker than is usual; which is nice.  Christmas was celebrated by my not sleeping particularly well on the eve; and then foregoing any sleep whatsoever on the actual night.  This was unfortunate because one half of the family were visiting on the boxing day.  In essence I went three days on a few hours sleep; with a little alcohol and a lot of painkillers.  If anyone saw the christmas day QI, I was something  akin to their 'forgotten Osmond brother impersonation.  With all kinds of lurching and inane, unintelligible ramblings.

If you didn't see that particular episode, then I was basically Doctor Frankensteins creation; only less coherent, and somewhat more uncoordinated.

No more messing around; let's get straight to the good stuff, what christmas is really about.  This year I got a number of interesting books, and tickets to watch Harlequins play in 'the big game,' (TM).  Pictures of the game to follow; and what a corker it was.

I've read one of the books, about photography, and it was quite an interesting read (if you're into that kind of thing).

Instead of being a technical manual on creating a picture, in terms of apertures, shutter speeds and white balances, (this being specifically about digi-cams) it focuses upon the grey, non-concrete art of photography.  The art of framing a picture.

The author is (quite possibly) not comfortable with the written word, despite writing a number of other books, evidenced by the number of spelling errors and grammatical inconsistencies that make certain passages somewhat difficult to understand.  Either that, or he is a non-native English speaker.

His emphasis is also interesting, because he gives certain rules that he utilises himself, in a given situation; using mathematical and painting rules, among others, in order to give a scientific flavour to his ideas.  He goes to great lengths to explain how to employ these 'rules,' and to a reasonable extent explains why they work.  This is rather interesting, and I find myself employing some of these rules naturally.  Most are not ground-breaking, and I suspect many people subconsciously employ them anyway.  Knowing why you act in a certain way in a given situation, or knowing that you even do is, however, invaluable - knowing these things will allow you to create a successful frame more frequently, and even abscond from given rules, when the situation is favourable; in order to create something fresh.

At every juncture we are reminded that these rules are, in fact, not rules at all; and that sticking to them rigidly is detrimental to the end product.  A nice caveat, I think you'll agree, should anyone question his ideas.  'Well, it works for me, but might not work for everyone.'  Isn't that the tag-line to most hair-recovering products and self-help manuals?

I received another on global warming, that shall be read when the fancy takes me.
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Quins/Wasps, then, was a fantastic game.  I thoroughly enjoy going to Twickenham, in whatever form that should take.  The crowd was entirely different to that which frequents international matches, but that is to be expected.  An international match is about rugby.  A club match is purely entertainment, and there is not better stage than the home of rugby.

Twickenham is by no means a large international stadium; but the scale of these things (even the smaller ones) boggles my mind.

The volume of concrete that went into the structure is dwarfed only by the amount of beer that is consumed on any given occasion.

I can't figure out whether I had the camera held at a funny angle, or whether the stadium  actually leans out like that.

Someone should really tell the architects about this.

Walking into the stadium is quite surreal.

Going from a relatively tight corridor, bristling with other game-goers, into a colossal bowl.  It's one of the things I look forward to.

The stadium fills up about ten minutes before kick-off.  Up to that point, it sits primarily empty, full of a lot of cold air, and nowhere for it to go.  (It was quite cold, yes)

Seventy thousand people congregate within that ten minute period, from their tremendous drinking outside.  It's amazing to see how quickly everything happens.

The cheerleaders and an abba tribute band.  I think they were abba anyway.


I include this only to show how empty the stadium still is at this point.

Clear sky in the evening, shepherds are leaving.

*Note*  This rhyme may not foretell weather conditions, as others containing shepherds claim to.

The Wasps warming up before 'The Big Game,' (TM).

It's always interesting watching them warm-up, because you'd inevitably do the same routines a few weeks after you see them in an environment like this.

Unlike Formula 1, where innovation takes decades to reach the road, it's only a matter of weeks in this world.

Nearly ready for kickoff.  Too excited to hold the camera steady.  Sorry.

Scantily clad lovelies: Check.

Floodlights:  Check.

Two Teams:  Check.

Blind Referee:  Check.

76,000 Supporters:  Check.

Forty thousand cubic feet of mustard gas:  Check.

COME ON YOU QUINS!














I'm not going to show you any pictures of the action, primarily because I have none. I was too busy concentrating on the game to be taking any of these here photomographs.

The final score:  21-20 to Wasps.  Quins were robbed in the measure of one tenth: Own carelessness to nine parts blind referee.  The final, game clinching try from Wasps came curtesy of an american football style blocking manoeuvre.  Disgraceful.

One bonus point will have to suffice.

Onto the Cat picture(s)!

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Firstly - Can someone please impose some kind of order.  This is more disorganised than parliament.

Moving on...

I borrowed (see:stole) my grandparents camera, and took pictures of anything and everything.

The people looked somewhat glum, (probably due to me photographically flashing them forty or fifty times) so I stalked the feline member of the household for a while.

I love this camera.

Why the long face?

'Well, there's this idiot see, and he's got this camera.'

What kind of colour is that?  Brown?

I don't know.

'And this idiot right, keeps putting stuff on me, with this camera right.'

(See:here)

I like this one.

After a hard days' shoot, all there is to do is sleep.

Considering all cats do is sleep anyway, there is no real indication of it being a hard day.


Anyway; that's enough for today.

Those Damned Crazy Kids...

I'm sitting here with the mother of all headaches, at 5:30Am on Boxing day; having decided in my (in)finite wisdom to not sleep.  This, on the back of a christmas eve that heralded a sub-par sleeping performance also.

Man I'm tired.

I'm so tired I learned how to say 'I'm tired' in another language, in order to increase the number of possible recipients of this amazing fact.  'わたしはすごくねむいです。’

I can't even find the headache pills in the foreign land that is, the house of another person.  Imagine that last bit in an americanised movie trailer voice, and you are approaching the thoughts that are going through my head right now.  Tiredness does some amazing things to the brain.  It stops mine working properly, for one.

I just got sent this  little puzzler:

I would like to point out that I didn't get a single one; but to point out the banality of this particular exercise, number eleven is 'neon light.'

I have to also highlight some of the other guesses I made.

Number sixteen is 'six feet under.'  My guess:  Stomping ground.

Mine is better, I feel.

Number eighteen is somewhat difficult to see, but it says 'He's/himself.'

My guess was Emo.  This one takes a little explanation:  An emo is someone who pretends to be depressed, and likes cutting themselves.  Therefore, He's/Himself becomes He's (slashing) himself.

Again, my guess is better than the answer, that of 'he's beside himself.'

I should write these things, not just commentate on them.

I'm not going to tell you the rest of the answers, because some of them are just pathetic.

I include this one, not to insult your intelligence as it may at first appear, (this one is seemingly designed for post-labotomy recuperation) but to point your attention in the direction of the bottom left of the picture.

This one is supposed to be 'Brain wave.'

The truth is that the architect of these questions had one of these while drawing them up.  That is to say he had a 'brain fart.'  The act of your brain throwing up a completely unrelated artefact akin to me saying:  When I was walking down the road I ostrich was quite cold.

The designer drew a hand with four fingers and no thumb, or one thumb and three fingers.  And the hand is drawn to resemble that of a three year olds' drawing.  These factors make the picture both a brain fart, and of one.  Gadzooks batman, my irony detector is about to explode.

I'm filling in the tags for this post, and I can't remember what the word for chronic sleeplessness is.  I really want to type in anorexia for some reason.  Maybe I'm hungry.

Goddamnit what is that word?

Running and the Post...

Please read to the bottom for a funny story I saw.

As has been typical lately, I went for a run.  Two things differed from the established norms on this occasion however, as I took a camera, and it there was snow in the air, and on the ground.

If you've ever run for more than twenty seconds on snow, you'll know it shares a similar feel to another unstable substance; that being sand.  Unless you've never run on sand, in which case you might like to know that it feels similar to snow.

So because of the inordinate quantities we've been having, I decided to capture a few more images.

I took these while running along, so forgive the camera shake.

Even after a solid pace I was cold, leading me to suspect that my thermal shirt, t-shirt, thermal undies, swimming shorts, bank robber woolly hat AND my fleece were insufficient for this weather.

Had I not left for Japan, and were I still those many kilograms heavier, I feel a pair of briefs would have sufficed.  Now that my bones are a mere skin-depth from the elements, the cold holds a much greater fear for me.

As you will have no doubt spotted, my camera thinks that snow makes the world blue.  While it does depress everyone on the news, it takes it somewhat more literally.

Hopefully the next photograph will dispel the myth that I live underwater.

This one does manage to take us away from the seabed, but it does give the impression that the (n)th apocalypse is coming.

Again, taken on the move, I should probably stand still and take one at a later date.

At the time of writing this, it's -5 degrees outside though, so as you can imagine, even during the day with the ample sunlight (evidenced by this picture) present in England, standing still for more than ten seconds is hazardous for ones' health.

I had to include one with a little motion blur involved to show you the tremendous speeds I was travelling at this stage.

The lateral blur is indicative of a shaking hand, possibly moving from right to left in order to increase the feeling of speed...

But of course, that cannot be confirmed.

This is the long and lonely road I tread to the stomping ground of fitness that is a disused green belt, surrounding this here town.

It functions as a... as a... as something.

It also has plentiful pull-up, dip and sit-up facilities (if one uses his/her imagination!) to increase the overall efficiency of a workout.

It is however, and I'm not making this up, (in a 'the fish I caught was thiiiiiiiiiiis big kind of way) ruddy steep.  You run down all the way there.  Great workout.  Even better for the mind, as you must overcome this fact on the way back.  Food for the body, mind and soul then, this running malarky.

I don't know whether this one is in focus.

I don't care.

It has lots of snow, and the wrong colour sky.  It wasn't this colour.  No filters were applied, apart from the rose coloured kind fostered by love.

Of course I'm in no such state, I can only surmise therefore, that my camera has had a funny turn.  If it were a horse, it would be dog food or glue by now, but such is the way of electronics that they cannot be put out of their misery quite so easily as a shotgun to the face.

Yes.  Horses have faces too.  Think of that, the next time you try to glue something to another thing.

And when I happened upon the about-turn area, I also came across a few giant snow people men.

It's quite interesting to see the level of craftsmanship involved.

Nary a detail was missed, and it's great to see the artisans of snowcraft are thriving throughout the town.

It's also funny to imagine the (statistically speaking, rather likely to be) fat kids trying to lift a mere fraction of their own bodyweight in snow above their heads.

This is actually taken at an approximation of the correct angle.

The wicked Michael Jackson style Gangster Lean, as it shall now be known, looks set to end this mans' life  prematurely.

I shall find out, dear reader, if this snowman survived, when I go for my next run.

This family lacks the individual quality of the solo Gangster member, but does hold something of the wonderment that is christmas.

Well, to anyone who thinks that the biggest box will have the best presents, this picture is christmassy.

You need a sense of scale to appreciate how much effort went into these bad boys.

(Children avert your eyes)

I understand that this photo is awful.  I also understand that, side-on, I look something akin to a kipper on the ocean floor.

I wasn't even pretending to be short when eyeballing this guy, he really is that well made.

Kudos to whomever chose to dedicate their time to such an endeavour!

One more of the family and its' terminally ill falling son.

Hopefully he'll find his legs someday.

The footprints of an unidentified creature.  Any trackers out there who want the chance to hunt the famed yeti, here it is.

Or it's a rabbit.

Rabbits aren't as good for hunting based tourism though right.

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We switch gears now as I received an early present from Japan.

What could be inside this bag?

If the person just off-camera would stop asking, they might live through the night.

Anyway.

Inside this case was...

This bear porch.  (As written on the customs declaration)

It's a bag, presumably a pouch of some kind.

I simply must ask this question.  If you're a mid-level learner of a language, why would you know the word 'pouch' sufficiently to recall it?  Spelling aside, I estimate a forty year lagtime between now, and me knowing the equivalent word in any language.

Exceptional, if somewhat redundant, knowledge is on display here.

Inside the pouch was a small keyring adornment that plays the '1-up' tune from Mario.  Random?  For you this may well be the case.  For me and those involved however, it is only slightly less random.  Crazy, but simultaneously, crazy-awesome.

Best christmas card ever!

Sorry, but no amount of tinsel, or annoying shimmering flakey stuff can make up for the ten thousand mile trip this card took.

Fine wines age, christmas cards that voyage assume a similar air of importance!  Cards cannot be accused of being pompous however, which is nice.

Many pictures today!



And here is the funny story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8424836.stm

This is the reason why the world laughs at America.  Those who are there now, seriously, be careful.  Once people become deathly afraid of snow, you have to ask yourself whether the money present in America is worth your life.  Seriously.

Nothing to Report

Four or so days until Christmas.

No job yet.

Snow is melting quickly.

Life continues as normal.

Here is an aggressively out of focus icicle.








The end.

Snowtastic.

There's been a reasonable amount of snow here; around five centimetres or so.  For a single snowfall that's pretty amazing, for England anyway.  Way back, when men were men, and slavery was rife, people used to ice skate on the Thames quite often.  This gradually declined in frequency, to create the balmy clime we now experience.

Interestingly, as the planet warms up, (and snow melts elsewhere) England will become colder.  The warm ocean currents that power, or more accurately, comprise the warming phenomenon are driven by the salts present in the sea.  As the concentration of salt lessens, due to increased volumes, the warming effects will lessen, because the currents will grow less strong.  Trace your finger, from London, around to the other side of the world following the same latitude.  You'll find we are pretty much level with Canada, and you know how warm it is there.

It will be interesting to see how much the sea shields us from the extreme weather they have, as it acts as something of a hot water bottle in Winter, and a cooling mist blower thing in Summer.

I waited until well into the darkness to take a couple of photos.  The snow was five (Planet Earth) centimetres deep.  I think I've already mentioned that.

Anyway...

I waited for dark so I could use the flash, and take pictures of the thousand snowflakes falling.  If the snow if heavy enough you can generally do okay without a flash, but it wasn't that heavy.  Like all things English, it was simply persistent, and despite an hour of simply muddying the ground, this snow finally found some legs and settled.

Look at all that snow.  It's like being a kid at christmas.

This kind of mid-air snowfall is worth literally (some amount of) money in Hollywood, as producers and directors strive to get this effect.  The Matrix designers took three months to get the right sized rain droplets for the final scene.  Madness.

Taken from the relative safety of the little porch out-back.

This is not to be confused with the Australian outback; which is somewhat colder than here.  What  with all the super-chilled Fosters and accompanying ice cubes and whatnot.

And herein lies the problem with snow in England.  It happens once, maybe twice a year; and for an hour it looks fantastic.  You have that one hour window to look at the snow, and take pictures of it looking pristine, before it's swamped by footprints and mud.  Only, it's usually not mud, of course.

The trees groaning under the weight of the snow made for a far more interesting journey into the town than is usual at this time of year.  The melting snow meant a lump would sometimes fall off the branches, and create the archetypal post-snowfall scene, where a little of the fallen snow hangs in the air for a second.  I would have waited in this exact spot in order to record this moment, but there would have been no point with my current camera.

This picture shows the problem with sporadic snowfall really.  This has already been trodden into an icy layer, with the snow remaining  underfoot only where no man dares tread.  The sides of any path are, obviously, out of bounds for human feet; so the snow remains untouched in these places.

The first witnessed casualty of the weather.  A tree stupid enough to still have leaves.  If the wind and the rain didn't get this thing, the wind and the rain would have.  Stupid thing.

It did create an interesting roadblock though.

This was the second casualty.  I fear the council will take this away, ostensibly for health and safety reasons.  However we all know their real motive for doing this:  The wood burning stove, into which go all the unwanted kittens and puppies of christmas.  The ash generated is then used to fertilise the soils in the gardens tended to by the council themselves.  This includes all school playing fields, and those pretty little daffodil patches you see adorning roundabouts in Spring.

It will be something of a shame to see this go.  I feel there's a romantic sentiment surrounding such things, as it slowly becoming part of the earth that sustained it is an endless theme within our own lives; and this tree mirrors us, as does all nature, eventually.

Apparently, looking at the trees in the area, half of the snow abandoned here, ended up travelling horizontally.

This created an interesting phenomenon, whereby small spheres of snow appear in open spaces of untouched snow.  This happens because an obstruction (this could be anything, from a clump of fallen snow, to a garden gnome) becomes a nuclei, onto which snow sticks.  As the wind blows, it causes more snow to stick, until the obstruction is fully coated.  I can imagine a mystical snowball fight taking place on our lawn, but science explains it away in my mind before each faction is fully realised within my own mind.

And this was the snow we had.  I love the name Yuki in Japanese, which, as I understand it, means snow.  I love that.  I love it so much that simply saying it is a pleasure.

Hello, Christmas

So christmas is actually here now.  I've pretty much escaped the constant year round hyperbole by sequestering myself away; hiding in a part of the household that has no television access.  This ensures I see only what I've searched for (bar the occasional popup) in the search engines of the infinite abyss.

It also means I've missed out on looking at all the cool toys kids are getting now.  I've always been a fan of the marrying of mechanical and electronic, and without a doubt, the current generation of cheap plastic crap is far superior to the cheap plastic crap I was bought.

With the exception of steam locomotives, and the difference engine, dynamic mechanical engineering leaves me somewhat cold.  I can see the beauty in how a petrol driven engine works, but actually diving headfirst into the bonnet is something best left to others.  There's just so much oil.  And none of it comes from whales.  Such a waste.

However.  I can also see why a human cannot love a computer in the same way they can love a car.  A car, or my personal preference, a steam loco, has a definable soul.  Interestingly, this soul is rarely defined by how well something works, or its' physical presence within the universe.  It is defined by how often it doesn't work, and how 'fun' (liberal usage, here) it is to repair and 'get the old girl going again.'  Let me stop for a second and say, computers behave in exactly the same way.  They break for no reason, and take a lifetimes' commitment to maintain, yet they do not have a soul.  (Some, and I'm inclined to agree, argue that computers have the devils own soul)

I suppose this discrepancy could be placed upon our reliance on mechanical engineering we have in everyday life; that is not to say computers aren't important, of course they are - but we don't sit inside a computer, and trust our lives in them.  The engineering projects that have character are steam locomotives that force steam and noise upon you, and blunder their way through landscapes in a frantic attempt at running from its' own coal store, lest that catch fire and burn everyone horrifically.  Or the enormous bridge that spans such a length that we rely on our rudimentary understanding of physics, instead of our other blind faith, (Dog, anagram) to get us safely across.  We hope and pray these things deliver us safely across, and, ultimately, our lives our in their hands.  We attribute these things a personality, because temperament explains why they sometimes kill us.  Oh, she (the car, train, bridge) was pissed off.

No my friend, you forgot to fill up the radiator.  That's why the engine exploded.

Computers are elegant things.  There, I said it.  They do not blunder, they do not agitate.  They sit still, some will make a racket, some will sit quietly, but they are motionless things, doing just an incomprehensible job as the humber suspension bridge, but not drawing focus to themselves.  They may not have a soul, but they're elegant.

At this stage I come back to my first lines.  What kids have now, are small, crappy plastic toys that go someway between marrying movement, in the form of basic mechanics, with rudimentary computers.  This is cool.  This is a convergence of technologies that has been around for fifty years, but has never been so widely available, and, crucially, so cheap, that it could be marketed for £3.50, with free p&p.

In other headlines, as per my own at the top of this post; christmas is here.  It's extremely interesting to see how things change as you grow up.  I don't mean the philosophical - christmas isn't fun when you have to buy presents - kind of thing; I mean the literal, physical changes.  Christmas is shown as being a no-change time period.  People talk about what they do every year, whether it's a sherry at a certain hour, (the mean average time for this appears to be before 9am) a certain foodstuff eaten till explosion warnings sound mid-brain, or a certain game played by everyone that comprises the family.

I pray to Ogd (anagram) that I can shake things up next year, and be somewhere so far away, that they don't even celebrate christmas (the heathens!).  Maybe I'll enlighten a small part of the world as to the true meaning of capitalism, oh sorry, I mean christmas; by showing them a real, ten mile wide carbon footprint created by my present wrapping, and aforementioned useless-plastic-crap buying.

Of course christmas is actually about spending time with friends and family, while everyone has a government sanctioned rest period, and I already have a ton of friends in Japan to spend christmas with; so after a day at school I can rock up at the nearest watering hole, and have a few drinks on foreign shores.

I am so desperate to go there, that I have everything planned in my mind.  Luckily, I hate plans, and if I ever step into a plane, I'll forget I ever made any, and make it up as I go along.

At this point it is customary to see top 10's for everything as well.  This is in response to our need for reflection, and at this time I reflect that I have a degree (the worth of which will be ascertained in the future, but the fun in acquiring will never be forgotten), I have no job, it is six months since chenzi left the country, I have a teaching qualification, and I have no direction.  Okay, so the last one was somewhat forward-looking. Four of the last six months have dragged by so slowly, that I found myself looking.  Not staring.  Staring implies an area of focus.  Looking implies that there is something to see; at which point I can strike up a conversation about how I am not actually looking at anything, and that in of itself is a fascinating topic.

Two of the months passed by so quickly that I'm glad I chronicled them here.

And that's what christmas is.  A time for giving and receiving useless rubbish, eating and drinking too much, meeting people, and remembering the past year.  It is nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

What to Do...?

So I'm sitting in my bed, unable to sleep.  This is not an uncommon occurrence, in the world of Me; what is frustrating is my lack of combatative ability.  People swear by green tea, honey and lemon this, or herbal that, and it's what works for them.  Obviously; these remedies are purely psychological, they stem from nothing more than a willingness, the minds' own tricks to help perform ephemeral tasks.  What is sleep, afterall?

This has been a constant problem for me, and one I feel deserves something more than a mere patch of lines within the internet-ether; but this ability to trick yourself into believing nonsense is one that I've never quite mastered.  I must clarify this somewhat, before I continue.

I am not talking about being duped.  Being duped is something I am a past master at, and consider myself lucky to be so gullible, on occasion.  On the less fortunate occasions I have found myself on the receiving end of lifes little hidings, as per my final year at university; however life evens out eventually, so the bad times, due to naivety, will be righted by my blundering, naively (as naivety and ease of dupedness, are one and the same in my eyes) into a positive situation.  Being duped then, is something that happens to everyone.  Not knowing something is false is an easy trick to master.

Knowing something is false, and believing it with your whole heart.  Now, we're onto some kind of David Blain magic trick here.

And yet people do it all the time.  Drinking your green tea is great, despite the fact it contains caffeine, which increases all the pressures and rates that make sleeping harder.  If I told you it was a magic sleeping potion, and you knew no better as to what tea was, then great; you would fall asleep in a heartbeat.  But knowing what tea is, and still falling asleep.  Again, magic tricks.  This follows onto a whole host of other things:  Tarot cards, mind reading, magic tricks, (ironic, no?) the zodiac (Although I'm a dragon, and that's just goddamned cool as hell).  The list is endless, and includes such things as vitamin pills and protein shakes.

Interestingly, I take the last two things, although I'm not entirely convinced they're useless (yes I see the irony in this statement, jeez).  This is an interesting grey area that surely warrants more research.  If a product has dubious proof as to its' verisimilitude, and a person doubts the product; does the inverse square law apply here?  Mathematicians rejoice, the ninth unsolvable conundrum has been posed.  Alas, I cannot offer a million dollars to the solution provider, I have a mars bar and a five pound note.  Good luck, pioneers.

And so ultimately this is why I've always rued my chance at being born american.  If you simply believe what you're told, and you are told everything that you need to do, in order to live; your life will be as happy and fulfilling as the order-givers allow it to be.  In this case, those who give the orders are the government.  Eat X number of calories a day, eat X number of vegetables, drink this much water, etcetera.  Your entire life is planned out for you - from the basic requirements of everyday living, through to your overarching destiny.  You will live here if you meet this demographic, you will have this many children, you will have this many cars.  Anyone who ventures there from a country where some kind of independence is taught, good luck.  You may find it liberating to be the one eyed man, but it may also be crushing.  To anyone who comes from a country that neglects these values in favour of more idealisms; you should fit right in.

If you don't have to think about anything, you don't have to know why.  'Why' is the question that essentially breaks my illusion; 'why' is what makes people sad, annoyed, angry etcetera.  'Why' is never the question that makes you happy.  'Why' gives you momentary glimpses of happiness, whether it be the answering of a question that has puzzled you, giving an endorphine based rush that lasts all of five seconds; but it never gives a person more than those five seconds.  If you must be pedantic and argue those five seconds is a time of giving, then I would argue that 'why' is as guilty of taking those pleasures away, as giving them.  If Adam and Eve had never stepped foot in the garden of eden, and had simply lived upon the Earth as we know it now; they would not have been sad or heartbroken at their loss, because there would have been no loss.

Before I get concerned communiques about my newfound religious ideals; I have none.  It's just an example.  Get over it.  You know who you are; all three of you!

And even after all this writing, that will surely take some time to vet, I am not inclined to sleep.  I wonder at what stage not sleeping becomes physically unhealthy.  Not in terms of single stints of sleeplessness, because I know death can occur around eight days or so, (depending on the individual, a lot longer is viable) but in terms of the many years that this has happened to me.  Neural degradation is likely, as they might say on Star Trek.

Anyway.  I could write forever in the state I am in, or at least until my brain dissolves; which will be roughly twenty minutes, at my current gas mark level.

Far North

I recently watched a film entitled, 'Far North.'  The premise is that a small family unit, consisting of two women; one decidedly matriarchal - are travelling a frozen wasteland.  They are running from something, and judging from their relatively casual demeanour you immediately surmise that this tundra really is isolated, otherwise the chase would involve a more 'aliens-esque' kind of frantic running (which it doesn't).  Living from the land like traditional inuit/eskimo people, the viewer follows their exploits in reasonably graphic detail (you will understand why, when you reach the end of the flim), until the elder of the two women comes across a dying man.

At this point the dynamic that has been established by the director, between the two women, erodes into a more familiar, immediately recognisable family unit.

When the original relationship is irrevocably lost we see why the older woman has chosen to live her life in such a way; through flashbacks that chronicle her motives.  In these sequences we see how this story eventually ends, and it is a stunning way of foreshadowing events.  I cannot say anymore without spoiling the ending.  Although the ending is as predictable as the tides; it is handled in a way that, frankly speaking, will stay with me forever.  (Isn't that what good film-making is all about)

This movie should be a great incentive to those who wish to make film.  Instead of billing your film as something new or absurdly fantastical; instead of ladening the CG director with the task of filling every shot with an explosion, take a simple story, and time-worn concepts, such as betrayal, (as in this film) and explore that through believable characterisation.  So the situation they find themselves in may be fantastic; but the isolation serves a genuine purpose, forcing these individuals together.  This film needs no extra padding because of the very nature of the plot.

Sean Bean is the soldier who needs saving, Michelle Krusiec is the daughter, and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hiden Dragon; James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies; Memoirs of a Geisha) steals the show, basically.  She is the main character by default, because she is the reason they are all in this place; and her final act is the aforementioned memory that will last a lifetime.

Where Do You Think of as Being the Most Depressing Place in the World?

Africa, where people kill each other for fun, and annihilate entire populations for pride aside; I always assumed the most depressing place in the world would be a funeral parlour or something of that ilk.  Never being allowed to smile and always dealing with death, and those affected by death, would seem an ideal place to harbor and nurture suicidal tendencies.

I was proved wrong today however, as I went to my local government job centre.  The premise is that you get money in exchange for looking at becoming employed; as if it is a decision you (you in this case being me) can rectify of your own volition.

For example, I mentioned I enjoy writing to my 'personal development supervisor,' at which point he came up with this ever so helpful suggestion; 'oh, have you thought about journalism?'  My heart sunk.  It is not his fault of course, as with most jobs he isn't paid to think, and once his desk is vacated I'm sure he moonlights as a mastermind champion.

The point is that upon walking into this well maintained, brightly coloured and well lit office, full to bursting with unemploy(ed)(able) you realise there are several million others, just like yourself, who fulfill no purpose in life.  They have no reason to exist.  Them being unemployed is a fundamentally depressing concept; because most won't find employment, and those that do will inevitably be back within those very same walls in half a year.  Terminal illness is often considered the epitomy of sadness.  Tearjerking films often have some kind of terminally ill patient, struggling to exist; but they have a reason to exist.  These jobseekers have no meaning; what are we doing?  Why are we doing these things?  Ultimately, what is the point?  Our collective purpose may be to find a job, but that won't happen, and even if it does, it will only be short term, which puts us one step forwards, and one step backwards.

These questions essentially sum up the reason as to why the Job Centre is the black hole of purpose, and ultimately the shining beacon of depression.

Just a Quick Update...

Things are running along with my intended foray into the world of architectural design.  It's a lengthy process, and one that I'll hopefully be able to expose fully at a later date.  Needless to say, a lot of time has to be spent editing and whatnot.

On another note:  Australians are a rough bunch, aren't they?  They all spend their time sheering sheep and growing crops and whatnot; generally living tough lives that make them big and strong.  (Something of an exaggeration I grant you)  However, it seems they are very stupid.  (Bear with me here)  Because they have banned yet another computer game, because it is too violent for children.  Except of course that children are not meant to play it.  Presumably, therefore, the government thinks the average Ozzie parent is too stupid to say 'no' to their children.  The upshot is that the Australian censorship laws are stuck somewhere between the dark ages, and a hard place.  People did watch public executions during those times however, so there's an argument to say that Australia is even further behind the times than that...

Unfortunately the market for such games is a niche one, and the percentage of voters who are affected by this issue is relatively small; the minority will have to suffer because of the ignorance of the majority on this issue - despite the fact that this is one situation whereby ALL PARTIES CAN BE SATISFIED.  Allowing violence in videogames DOES NOT AFFECT ANYONE WHO DOES NOT PLAY THEM.  Wake up and realise this, please.  Seriously, you're not stupid, yet your government takes you for imbeciles.

England is exactly the same of course; except they take our physical freedom, in allowing the police to arrest us for any amount of time 'they deem necessary,' and they take our money to protect us, from ourselves; in the form of carbon dioxide molecules.

It has also extended to game trailers, so chronic is their problem.  You can't show trailers of games that will not be allowed, so that people don't kick up a fuss when it magically doesn't appear on store shelves.  Ignorance is bliss!

There is a simple solution to this small problem however.  Download it.  The internet prevails over stupidity once again.  You won't be breaking any laws, because you're not allowed to distribute copies of the offending article, so as long as you don't flog it down the local market, you'll be alright.  Plus you get a morally justifiable free game!  Awesome!  Manhunt 2 uncensored, anyone?

The Things we Find Ourselves Doing...

I've finally got round to starting an exercise routine again.

Having worked so hard for the years I was at university to give myself an edge over the competition, the rest period of Japan is probably a welcome one; from the point of view of my body.  I found myself aching in places that my grandad complained about, and waking up every day to a creaking array of joints, and unintentional, barely audible groans.  I'm pretty sure it was the rugby causing this, so hopefully going to the gym again won't bring these symptoms back.

I've begun running around again, with the eventual aim of getting back to the gym.  It's amazing what losing fifteen kilograms of weight can do for your long distance running performance though, as I now feel able to run more than fifty metres without passing out!  And this is with many months of no training, so I should be substantially more unfit than before.

As a side-note; I've found a tucked away park that appears to have only one entrance and one exit, and it located far enough away from civilization that I'm sure it never gets used.  I'm not sure what the point of it is, but I find it a convenient halfway point on my run.

In other news, I'm committing some ideas for a new attraction in the Top Events GB repetoire to disc; in the form of a labor intensive, mind bending 3D diagram of how I believe the site should progress.  It's an extremely interesting process, but one that demands an attention to detail that's difficult to summon up.  Using Googles' own mapping software, named SketchUp, and utilising google maps to lend some realism to my ideas; I'm slowly forming a viable idea.  It does take an awfully long time however, and the 3D design aspects are proving far from intuitive.  The idea is that this software becomes accessible to everyone, by approaching the 'problem' of 3D content creation from a different angle.  This approach falls down somewhat when you realise that this type of program has been around for decades, in the form of video game design; and their mapmakers, while more complicated, are far easier to use.  Oxymoronic (sic) maybe, but true nonetheless.

I can't show you what I'm designing currently; but I can show you what I was tinkering with last night - that is before I realised you can't scale down irregular curves properly.  Well done sketchup, well done.







In an unrelated note; here are some more pictures I've received from the other side of the world.

I may have already uploaded this one, but I like it; so it's staying.

So many of these little animations...

My own personal favourite of the animations.  This one says, 'thank you.'



ありがとうまどーちゃん！（いぎりすはすごくさむいです！）（がんばってね！）
ありがとうふみえ！（あなたわちょーかわいいー！）
ありがとうひろみーちゃん！あなたのこうびとおやうびとひとつさしうびとくすりうびとなかうびはきもち！ねえええええええ！
ありがとうたかこねさん！あなたの歌うこと はすごい！
ありがとうぱるぱーちゃんと００７さん！
ありがとうゆかりーさん！
ありがとうみな！

Where the Hell is... the Truth?

So the number of amazing things that can be found freely on youtube boggles the mind.  Freedom of information is paramount to improving our understanding of the world, and therefore improving our understanding of other people.

In one hundred years time, when the lesser economies have access to youtube, or whatever the site of fashion is at that time; people will be forced to take notice of what their respective militaries are doing.  We see a sanitised version of war on the news right now, with the occasional amputee, or blinded victim paraded to gain a few extra ratings points.

What if we see the actual effect of a bomb?  What if we see the real effect of dropping a 500lb bomb on an orphanage.  What if the news wasn't edited and sanitised to make it safe for teatime viewing.  I think this is where the power of the internet can shine above traditional media.

Of course this won't work; and it pains me to say that it's merely a pipe dream for people to see what happens when such things occur, because websites such as myspace, facebook, youtube and twitter are subject to strict usage guidelines that effectively ensure no one is shown anything 'disturbing'.  In other situations this is called censorship, and is frowned upon by everyone who has more than three brain cells, as a way of controlling people and the way they think.  This essentially means this little pipe-dream cannot happen with the current generation of information sharing websites; but maybe someday in the future it will become viable.

So instead of showing you the horrors of war, and what our presence in faraway countries actually looks like (which is not as pretty as the BBC makes it out to be) I will show you the positive contribution such fluffy websites can offer.

This video is 'Where the Hell is Matt.'




Firstly I must warn you (perhaps this line of warning should go above the video, then?) that this has been commented on by Americans, and the comments are therefore best avoided for sanity reasons (unless you want a jolly good laugh, in which case, carry on).  This video is neither groundbreaking nor original; I only include it to highlight one common truth among all nationalities:  Everyone likes dancing.  (I also interject here to point out that I don't, because I look like one of the thunderbird puppets, so uncoordinated are my limbs)

Everyone is the same, ultimately.  Sure, some people want to kill all white people, some want to kill all black people, and some want to kill everyone; but that's yet another thing we have in common (along with dancing).  For us to invade a country for oil has sparked a hate-filled campaign to oust us from their countries.  This is merely hidden under the guise of religion (as all good, hate filled vendetta's are) and is an inevitable by-product of the invasion.

I don't condone killing, even for oil; but it was inevitable that we should be gripped by a 'terrorist' alert now.  If you punch me in the face, I will punch you.  This is the way humanity works.  And as someone very clever once said; every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  That's science, you can't argue with science.

If You Want My Advice...

So my phone self-destructed when I was in Japan; so I requested a replacement from three mobile, along with a new simcard.

The replacement arrived a week or two ago, and was broken.  So I sent it back, received a new one, and surprise of all surprises, this one is broken too.  Both are refurbished models, however; it's extremely (see:here) unlikely both phones are faulty.

I fully understand that they are reading from a script when answering calls, and will be fired for showing any insight while helping the customer; but it seems plainly obvious to me that the mobile phone is not the problem.  The significantly cheaper alternative (for them) would be to send me a replacement simcard and be done with it.  Of course, this is a logical course of action, and large companies rarely do things the easy way, preferring to alienate everyone instead.

If you were wondering, my phone of choice is an 'INQ' (in capital letters no less) made by the telephone company who shows an outstanding propensity for creativity; 'INQ incorporated.'

And no, you should not buy this phone.  It is slow, the UI was obviously hand-crafted by a five year old with no access to a pencil sharpener, (presumably the closed blade in such a device poses a discernible health risk, discernible to someone, anyway) and the buttons are 'squishy.'  Yes that is a technical term, and no the buttons are not broken.  The 'squishiness' is designed into the very fabric of the phone, and epitomises the lacklustre effort of everyone involved in the creation of this monstrosity.

New mobile phones tend towards having a killer feature.  The iphones' was a price tag only a sheikh could afford, and a host of accompanying bloatware that would make even Bill Gates blush.  Ok, so that's not really a killer feature, but I can only presume these are the reasons for its' continued success.

The blackberry does... Something.  It's big and ugly, and business types like it so, if a gadget reflects its' owner, we can assume the blackberry steals taxes and buys overpriced Mercedes, to impress its various mistresses, before heading back home to the wife blackberry and doing a thousand pounds worth of drugs and alcohol.  I can only assume this is true based upon the news however, as I have no insider knowledge of their lives.  Or the life of a blackberry.  Wait, was anyone still following that pretence?

So this post turned somewhat more sinister than I initially planned, but that's what the news does to a person I suppose.

As a summary I guess you could conclude that: You should not buy the INQ, Blackberry, or iphone; go with something opensource like android.  You may well consider 3 mobile as your provider when you are next surfing for a change; they are rather helpful on the telephone, once you get past the ubiquitous robot woman, although you will find them extremely difficult to understand due to their being Indian outsourced.  They're generally nice to talk to, but they are as impotent as any other large company, due to their being structured by a sadist.

Luckily there are only a handful of idiots stupid enough to ask for this phone; so it will be a failure and the company will go bankrupt soon.

It doesn't affect me, being one of the idiots in question,  because my simcard is broken and I can't use it anyway.

Small miracles, eh.

Four Thousand Page Views and....

Well my little page counter is telling me that this little blog has had four thousand visits so far.  These are not unique individuals of course, and the vast majority are myself, editing and re-uploading pages.

The other little secret to this number, is that I have reason to suspect some kind of attack on blogspot, (the page counter went up 1,000 overnight early in this blogs' history, and again midway through) therefore the actual number of hits is actually uncountable, and because of the idiot-friendly nature, and closed systems of blogspot, I cannot trace traffic; basically, no one will ever know how many views these pages have had.

In unrelated news I've started writing my autobiography!  I've always threatened to write about myself, (my own ego dictated that this be the first port of call in any attempts at writing) and now seemed a logical time to start.  I have an inordinate amount of time to myself, and reflection is almost inevitable in such circumstances.  To show the pre-empted nature of such writing, I even took a module in autobiographical studies at university.  Autobiography is an overlooked form, but pre-existing works outline any number of ways approaching such writing.  As usual I've just conglomerated every 'style,' creating a bastardised English that is actually rather difficult to follow.

I'm still debating whether to keep what I've written, as it realistically reflects me, but will (probably) make very little sense to anyone else.  It's also extremely interesting to find myself reading what is already committed to page and thinking; christ, this is difficult to read.  I've often criticised other writers for having styles that are almost impossible to read fluently, requiring an adept cipher inside ones' mind, rather than a curious mind.  They are essentially the kind of books that egoists and pretentious prattlers love so much - apparently I secretly fall among their ranks.  Of course the egotistical nature of my personality is not surprising, anyone who writes about themselves at any length has an ego measurable on the richter scale; but I've always tried to avoid pretence in everything I do, or write.  Except within my family and close friends, maybe.

On another tangent, christmas beckons.  No jobs as of yet, some presents purchased, the dole beckons, and tensions are (as always) frayed within all family departments.  This is pretty much par, for the circumstances I find myself in.  JET scheme (an ephemeral shadow organisation, spear-headed by God or the devil, depending on whether you've been accepted or not) has recieved my application and is now reviewing it.

And that, as they say, is that.

Songs, Pictures and... The Other Stuff

I recently sorted out my music collection, because I found it quite challenging to locate anything of interst.  This collecting involved a program download, and an awful lot of collating, on behalf of rhythmbox.

It turns out that my music collection is now 115 gigs in size, containing 15,000 songs; totalling a staggering 45 days worth of music, on continuous play.  It was at this point I hit the random play button, and am working my way through the music as I write.  I'll tell you what my collection is like, in a few months.

I've also set myself the arbritrary target of a full years worth of music.  This is my intended music target, and will cost me roughly 850 gigs of space.  I intend to achieve this target within a year.  How's that for life ambition, eh?

On another media related note, I keep receiving great photographs from the people back in Japan.  It's interesting to see how they actually use their mobile phone cameras, and send photographs to each other without a care for expense.  This is probably to do with their inexpensive infrastructure, however it's so damned complicated that I can't make head nor tails of how it is actually charged.

Birds, birds and trees.  It's a bit odd to see the similarities in seasons between here and Japan; but it's yet another common factor between both countries.

I don't know whether animated gifs work either, but here is rirakuma, doing what he does best.  (That's relaxing, not drinking per se; you cynical bunch)

This is the kind of idyll that exists in any country with a history, and some means of preserving that history.  Thinking about this, these criteria narrow the possible venues for this scene down to the developed European countries, Japan and Korea perhaps.  I wonder why we take these kinds of views for granted, when you can only see them in a handful of countries?

Another really nice picture.  Thanks for all of them guys!

This is mado-chans' cooking prowess, for all to see!  How amazing do they look!!!  I'm not sure why she's made so many mushrooms though; perhaps a Freudian allusion to their mind altering nature!  Who knows...

All I know is, they look delicious!

This is another angry looking chap.  Does he have wings?  Or is my mind playing a trick on me?

And we end tonights presentation with another cute animated gif.  I get sent literally a couple of these things, every week; so I've built up an extensive collection already.

It appears that animated gif's don't work, but you get the idea anyway...




And to end with...