cdave | Recent Entries

Owing to being really busy at work, and (when I get out on time) in the evenings, I've not posted much recently. So here's my current list of things I don't have time to do justice to:

Dating

Having seen a couple of people point to a flawed article on dating amongst other things has made me want to try and write an Introspection post on the topic, so I can get my own head around my own thoughts on it.

RaceFail '09

I've spent many hours I don't have to spare reading up on the past three of months this fandom wide argument, and come to the conclusion that I don't have anything useful I could say.
I may or may not keep reading, but given that you would find it hard it hard to tell if I had, lets not worry.

Avenue Q

Went to go see this at the weekend with Dad. Very good.
Particularity enjoyed the song "Everyone's a little bit racist".
For some reason I got tunes from The Little Mermaid stuck in my head afterwards.

What is the correct way to include A Title in a sentence about "a title"?

Images

New Shelves (from Islington Council's version of freecycle)

How do I get in my room now?

I just put these up, how are they full already?

"Northern Irish" flag

Remember that artsy new flag for Northern Ireland?

Well over the weekend it got caught in the string, and today seems to have been torn in half. Nature causing art to imitate life?

My Mad war with chiller
A repost from my Facebook wall explaining why I was explaining maths to Jehovah's Witnesses

Gödel's incompleteness theorem is a mathematical proof that in any sufficiently complex system of arithmetic, there will statements that you cannot prove as true or false.

E.g. Tell me if the sentence on the next line is true or false:
This sentence is false.

You can assume the statement is true and develop a whole branch of maths off of that. Or you can assume it is false and develop a whole different branch of maths.

This is what I personally believe about God. The question is undecidable. You can form a coherent set of beliefs starting from the assumption that there is a deity/pantheon of some sort. You can form a coherent set of beliefs starting from the assumption that there is no God. But since it's not provable either way this seems like a waste of time.

This is why my religion on Facebook is Evangelical (I like telling people this) Strong Agnostic (I believe you cannot disprove a god).

Meta post

Given how little time I seem to have to blog I wanted to take a look at why I do again. Culminating in a poll asking you to pick one of my tags: Diary, Link, Introspection, Reveiws.

Ironically, I don't have time for this.

Current Mood: busy

If you haven't been keeping up with The Ten Doctors webcomic, now would be a good time to catch up again. If you don't mind spoilers have a look at page 202.

What if the watchmen were played by syndicated American comics?
First seen at

darth_tigger's

Anyone with photoshop skills want to help b3ta out with their daft Dyson Ball plan?

Current Mood: amused

[Poll #1360044]

Just wondering if there's generally a correlation.

I tend to keep my computer files tidier, as I have more storage space. I can always add another directory, but adding another bit of storage to your house is more complicated.

It looks like the DFC may have to shut down.

( Sarah's daily doodle of this )

I've managed to find RSS feeding blogs for all but one of my favourite strips creators, so hopefully I'll be kept informed of their future work, but it won't be the same. No other comics anthology I've ever picked up (okay that's probably less than 30) stands up to an issue of the DFC in my eyes.

I'll try and track down and post something about all of them soonish.

Oh, and this weeks reading list.

*) The DFC.

*) Dead of Night: Devil Slayer issues 1 - 4
Catching up on a backlog of regular comics, so expect more *s in my reading list.

This showed a lot of potential. The first issue follows the first few hours of a soldier returning to his third tour of Iraq. Ending in a ambush, with the final page being the first revelation that this is something more fantastic than a simple war story.

However from then on it ( descends into cliché. )

10) Zot! The Complete Black and White Collection by Scott McCloud.

As he says in the intro to this collection, these days he is better known as the author of "Understanding Comics". A brilliant textbook of the comic form, in the form of a comic. Actually many of you will know him from the Google Chrome Comic.

I'm very much a fan of good black and white line art, and Scott's stuff in particular.

This book covers his comics from 1987 to 1991. It very much changes in tone as the book progresses. It starts as a visually arresting superhero story, with his only powers essentially being flight (artificial), dexterity, and boundless optimism. With the plot being driven by the villain of that ark. By the end is instead a compelling tale about the lives^* of group of fairly geeky American high school students.

^*Well sexual awakening is probably the correct term. There's a whole issue devoted to too of them in a bedroom discussing if the time is right for them.

Every few issues, there's a page or two of directors commentary from Scott, that gives some fascinating insights into where the character's came from and what he was trying to do.

I'll definitely re-read all 575 pages of this one at some point soon.

11) Umbrella Academy story by Gerard Way Art by Gabrial Ba.
Lent to me by

raven_mocara.

The art reminds me is a slightly tighter version of the graffiti style I particularly like in Jim Mafood.

The first page is picture of a wrestler doing an elbow drop onto a space squid. For no real reason that has anything to do with the plot. Brilliant!

Most of the humour in this comes from the same sense of the surreal.

However for all these silly asides, this is actually a fairly dark tale. The hero's have been raised together, but been separated for some time, before being called back. Each has their own power, but also their own neuroses.

I can't quite decide if this is too silly for a serious story, or too serious for a silly story. Either was something doesn't quite sit right. I've spotted it's still going at the comic shops, so I may track down the second volume to see if it improves.

Current Mood: worried

( 8) Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland )
( Busy, but probably not that interesting to read. )
( 9) Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi )

Current Mood: busy

( Dull whittering/thinking out loud about Ikea bookshelves )

What I did at the Weekend and Reading list update still still to come.

Current Mood: thoughtful

My Dad just phoned to see if I Gmail was down for me too. It was.

So I thought I'd try and find out why.

It wasn't until after I'd had a look, that I realised how ironic it was.

(News seems to be that the website's down for everyone, but IMAP and POP are still working. Google's saying they don't yet know why, but are working on it).

Current Mood: amused

Dave Gorman may have grown up a bit since documentary comedy days, but not much.

He's 38 and not especially fit. 1500 miles. 32 days in the saddle. 32 nights on the stage. His Mum's told him not to do it but he won't listen.
Dave Gorman:Sit Down, Pedal, Pedal, Stop And Stand Up will see the intrepid comedian covering the extremes of the British mainland as he travels from this land's southernmost point to its northernmost tip, taking in the most easterly and westerly points along the way.

High Wycombe is the closest he gets to London, and it's on a Saturday. I may well go.

How would you follow up Unicorn vomiting swearing rainbows?
With a Unicorn crimping off a princess of course!

I certainly never thought I'd post a link to Cyanide and Happiness commenting on the art.

It's basically a stick figure comic with little to no continuity, focusing on offensive humour. Basically C&H is to XKCD as 4Chan is to Slashdot.

Managing to convey an increasingly awkward pause across 4 panels with it's minimalist style was very well done, and a reminder you don't need hyper realism to render various emotions.

Reading list, and What I did at the Weekend post to follow.

Current Mood: amused

Finally found out what that flag was:

As part of The [latest exhibition at the Hayward Gallery], Wallinger's 1996 work, Oxymoron - a large Union Jack flag that swaps the traditional British colours of red, white and blue for the Irish flag colours of green, white and orange - will fly on the Jubilee Flagpole on Jubilee Gardens, Southbank Centre.

In my defence it is a very bluey green.

The only place I could find online that mentions this London art, is Yorkshire Evening Post. Huh?

--

More internet fail:

Web 1.0

http://london.iop.org/meetings.html

Web 2.0

To find out details of meetings at the branch centre nearest to you, visit the London and South East Branch website at www.iop.org/activity/branches/London_and_South_East. From the menu, select "London and South East Branch Calendar" then "Map". On the map, select the drawing pin where your nearest centre is shown. The dates of forthcoming meetings will be displayed. Click on a date to find full details of the meeting.

Current Mood: annoyed

Ah yes, I remember the other thing I wanted to post about.

This has recently appeared on the flag pole on Jubilee Gardens.

It's barely fluttering, so it took us a few minutes to figure out what was wrong. The colours are the wrong way round!

Anyone know what's going here?

Current Mood: confused

Yay! Replacement copy of the DFC heading my way. An what a nice reply I got from them.

"We are so sorry that this misfortune befell your Issue 37!"

( World Domination Meme )

Heading to a pervasive games night tomorrow, with

hawkida and potentially a few Joinees.

Current Mood: pleased

( Delayed Post Photo )

Yay! Valentines card! From coffee! Mmm.

~~Yay DFC!~~ Hang on.
~~Yay 2 DFCs?~~ No wait.

The builders downstairs have torn the bloodly thing in half, got paint on it, and used the bloody envelope to make a "Wet Paint" sign.

F**king Gits!

I had every issue up to this, and they're sold out!!!

Current Mood: angry

*) The DFC It didn't arrive in Friday or Saturday's post! Eep!

7) Slan by A. E. van Vogt.

This is one of those classics of SF I hear name-checked a lot, so I thought I should add it to the to-be-read piles. Bought at Zombiecon. Read on the tube. My prior knowledge of it extended to the fact the phrase "Fans are Slans" had been used, as Slans were super human.

However far from it being the tale of supermen, it's the tale from the point of view of two lonely children. Who are reviled for simple being born Slan. That is belonging to a race that once ruled the Earth. They are not only mind readers, but smarter and stronger than humans too.

I won't write too much about it as one of the things I really enjoyed was the twists. This book is full of them. Each of them was surprising, made sense, and revealed more about the history of this world.

The story was first published in the 1940s, and as such has plenty of whizz bang atomic energy rays an the like. I see this as a good thing.

Far from the ending being a Deus ex Machina (as this reviewer thought) I thought it by far the most telegraphed of the twists.

In short. I enjoyed. A ripping '40s yarn, worthy of it's classic status.

This edition finished with two chapters from Slan Hunter by Kevin J Anderson (based on notes by A E van Vogt), which pick up from the end of the novel. If you liked the Dune prequels you may like this. I didn't like the Dune prequals much and didn't like what I saw of this.

I've just looked at a couple of reviews online.

"melodramatic situations and snappy (if dated) dialogue all match the original seamlessly." - Publishers Weekly.

I disagree here. John Petty is suddenly promoted from a sinister, if ultimately outwitted, villain, to a Bondesque gloater who decides to place the object of his murderous desires in an easily escapable box.

Here's a fairer review (by someone who presumably read the whole book).

"Ultimately, I'd have to say that this volume honors its predecessor in a fairly commendable manner—but it's not, and possibly never could be, the Slan II from some imaginary 1943 that we all dream of." Scifi.com

Current Mood: pleased

Valentines Day has always seemed to have two parallel traditions. For those in a relationship it is a day to express your love for each other (lets set aside cynicism for now). I think this is a lovely sentiment.

The other one is anonymously declaring your love for someone. This bit doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand it at all.

Asking someone out, is fine. Telling someone you think they're gorgeous in person, could be objectifying and creepy, so is not so cool, but can be done politely. But anonymously saying you love them seems a bit... well stalkery.

Can you explain this to me?

That said ( purely for the purpose of a scientific test... )

I never turn off anonymous comments, but what the heck, I'm declaring this to be an anonymous comment Friday. Log off face book and say what you want.

A couple of useful sites I've had difficulty re-finding recently.

Price comparison site with graphs tracking how much your item cost recently. Won the channel 5 Gadget Show challenge at the end of last year for consumer electronics.

For weird tat don't forget Froogle. I found a pair of welding Goggles for a fiver there.

Restaurant Vouchers. Fairly London chain centric, but with several 50% off deals it's worth checking before heading out.

P.S. Don't tell anyone about the fantastic Japanese omelet place that

monkeyssk8 told me about, where they cook the stuff in front of you. It's too fun to get any busier.

It's bad enough that I told

plentyofants,

piesandmash, Fuzz, Jez and Si about it at Christmas.

Current Mood: hungry

*) The DFC.
At first I thought Frontier was going to be another MacGuffin generating monsters strip. I didn't see how it could stand up against Monkey Nuts or The strange strange world of the weird. But it came onto it's own this week, where we find out what the kidnapped Indians have really been forced to mine.

6) Why Do Buses Come in Threes? by Rob Eastaway.
A popular science book on maths, and how it often runs counter to your intuitions. Probably aimed at about entry level GCSE. Does a good job making maths interesting for that level, but I found I wanted more from it.

Current Mood: nerdy

I told a story about getting in trouble in at school to

hawkida,

purplecthulhu,

major_clanger,

tanngrisnir, and Alice WIPIOLJ,AQPOMFL,BIANS¹.

It seems that

offensive_mango has declared this to be a meme today, so I'd better share.

I went to a fairly relaxed senior school. On lunch time a bunch of sixth fromers found a supply of parcel tape somewhere. So naturally taped a guy to chair and took him out to a the school roundabout. After flailing for a bit he managed to tip the chair over to the amusement of the younger school kids who's started watching. A teacher marched over, picked the chair up, put it back up right, and left him taped to it.

I only got in serious trouble twice.

The first time I got sent to the head's office for fighting (there are over 1500 students there, so this really is a rarity). I was probably in year 9 was playing football against a bunch of year 7s. One particularly little one had decided he had something to prove, so was trying to pick a fight with the tallest guy there. Me. Now I was really scrawny, and have never been a fighter, so he'd have better off trying to wind up almost anyone else.

Eventually he got to me though. When he pulled yet another two footed tackle after I'd passed the ball, rather than dodge, I let him take my feet out, and promptly fell over. On his face. Elbow first. And got caught out by dinner lady.

The other time was a my only ever detention. I was sitting the middle of the room in front of the teacher. On either side of the classroom where a couple of seat warmers who were decided to have elastic band / paper wad war. Being directly between them I got hit a fair few times, so discreetly returned fire. But the grey matter deficient guy on the left took umbridge at the class geek joining in their game, so walked over and socked me one. Right in front the teacher. All three of us paper flingers got detention.

I was at least allowed to serve it separately from them. I spent a couple of evenings stacking chairs with a nice kid, who been caught picking the lock on the vending machine restock cupboard.

¹ Who I presume is on livejournal, and quite possibly on my f-list, but I am not sure.

Current Mood: nostalgic

I started compiling an address book late last year. There are several places I can look when I need to find someone's contact details, but I'd never compiled them into a central location.

One thing this reminded me of, is that I haven't used an IM tool (outside of facebook) in about 3 or 4 years. I've tried and I can't access my old MSN account, so decided to just ~~reinstall Trillian~~ install Pidgin, and create some new accounts.

So I'd thought I'd ask what's popular with the kids these days.

[Poll #1343464]

So far I have an MSN and Google Talk both using this email.

Comments screened, if you feel like leaving me your details.

Current Mood: geeky

or what I did in 20 mins this lunch time.

( Yog-Snowthoth the snowman )
{ETA}
( Bride and Groom spotted in the snow )

Current Mood: creative

All of these deserve more space, but time is fleeting.

Why I dislike spoilers. At the end of the 2006 series of Dr Who, I thought it had a week more to run, so the ending was a real surprise. I watched it on DVD box set recently, and didn't realise the last disk was all extras, so the same thing happened again.

Response to a tlanti post, on how I MacGyvered my way into my house once.

Seeing how few of chiller's friends sleep well, post a poll asking how often people know that they have dreamed.

Impressions of last week's work travel. Business class to Karachi.

Next reading list:
Finished reading JPod.
Nighthawks spotted Good Dog, Bad Dog in the DFC. And Dead Like Me. Wish I could remember the first time I was aware of this painting. It was in the last few months I'm sure.
Finished reading Perdido Street Station.

When I caught a bus coming the other day, as I was walking past the bus stop I said "bonus" out loud. I think that's a nice phrase, and wanted to blog about why. Not sure I've ever heard anyone say it as an exclamation if happiness though.
Chatted to lady waiting at stop on Northern line cursing me.

Blog about the Alternative Press Fair.

Been tagged to do a 16 things about me meme.

Been a while since I re-did a Myres Briggs test and that one looks good as it shows you relative strengths of them (I was borderline on the last two iirc).

Current Mood: busy

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Recent Entries

Current half written posts

The Doctor Watches Balls - linkdump

Tidy or Messy?

Nooo!

What I did last weekend, and what I read.

Sweedish meatballs for dinner soon.

Isn't it alanic, don't you think?

Several things make a post

Roadworks on the Information Superhighway

The Union Steve?

Three things make a post.

Delayed mail

Slans.

Anonymous Valentines. I don't get it.

Buy Cheap Yums : Linkdump

Reading 2009: Why Do Buses Come in Threes?

Ahmmma! I'm tellin' on you!

Instant Messaging

Look on and be chilled.

Current list of half written posts.