Journal Entries
43 today
Posted Aug 28, 2006
I got the best birthday present I have ever had. I listen to loads of radio, spending more time listening than I do surfing or viewing put together. So I got given a Pure Bug Too this morning. It
* Sounds fantastic
* Look great
* Records radio programs on a memory card
* Plugs into the stereo
The best thing about it is the electronic program guide, which allows you to see what's coming up and select it for later listening.
It also starts up with two friendly big blinking eyes staring at you!
Discuss this Journal entry [42]
Latest reply: Aug 28, 2006
Taking Stock
Posted Aug 23, 2006
I've been here for close to six years now. I've changed jobs (three times), moved house, lost two family members and several friends, and watched my daughter grow up from a baby into a beautiful little girl. I've watched myself age: many more grey hairs now than when I started out, but at least I've gained as many grey ones as I have lost brown.
I finally turned in my badge as a Scout, for good, the other day. I've gone walkabout beforehand but this time I couldn't bring myself to make my picks. I found myself looking down through PR and not actually wanting to read anything in it. Here, for example, are some of the current list of items on the first page in PR:
Project Gnome
Pterosaurs
Things to see and do in Vienna, Austria
'Help!' - the Film and Album
Watching England in the Football World Cup
Vampires of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Whaling and Whale Protection
Where True Powers Dwelt: Tolkien's Mystery Element
Ben Folds Five
Rich Hall - Comedian and Author
HomestarRunner.com
Aliens - The Movie
Bacon & Cold Chicken - A Ghoulish Recipe
Parliamentary Generals in the 1640s: Sir John Merrick
Federweisser - a German must
Batallón de San Patricio - The Mexican Irish Battalion
Pop-Tarts
Commuting by Bicycle in British Cities
Street names in South Woodham Ferrers
A Quick Guide to BDSM
There are seven entries in there that actually engage my attention. You guess which ones. And, if you can guess which ones and guess correctly, then you're probably on the way to realising that I've become so throughly jaded with marginalia and pop-cultural-ephemera that any sight of them now acts like a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water. It immediately triggers the gag reflex.
Tell me: *what* is the point of this project now? I came here because I've always wanted to write and to communicate in a stimulating and informative fashion, but some subjects just don't bear writing about. If the purpose of h2g2 is, as it increasingly seems to be, to cover those topics that everybody else has deemed to mundane or uninteresting to write about then perhaps it's time it was just put out of our misery and left to die.
FM (ex-Scout)
Discuss this Journal entry [195]
Latest reply: Aug 23, 2006
Men Very Easily Make...er, Cracked?...Jugs Serve Useful New..er, Clandestine Purposes,,,,Um...
Posted Aug 19, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4795755.stm
12 planets instead of the usual 9? The more the merrier, I say!
One things is for certain: the old mnemonics will have to go. Instead of coming up with new mnemonics, why not just rename the lot after 12 easily memorable items in a well-known sequence? After the months of the year, say? We could live on March, then. Ot the 12 Apostles? Planet Bartholemew, anybody? Or the twelve Norse Gods who happened to be dining when Loki got one of them to throw an apple branch at some other geezer?
Answers on a postcard please: tthe winner will be announced during another such quiet week in the silly season.
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Aug 19, 2006
Thank God that's finished, then
Posted Aug 17, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4793983.stm
I know I've not been around here much of late. Too tired, too busy, too ill....lot's of excuses. But I felt I should comment upon this notorious case if anyone should.
I grew up about two miles from where this happened. I could normally walk it in twenty minutes at a push. Clydach is and was a very quiet little town. The biggest employer is the nickel refinery, a surprisingly nonpolluting and unobtrusive industrial concern.
My father is buried in Coed Gwilym cemetery, a beautiful little spot. I go to see him when I visit my remaining folks (a dwindling band) and we have our 'conversation'. Just down from where he rests, there is a huge stone grave. This is where the whole of the Power family are buried. Three generations snuffed out by one drunken thug. I first noticed it when I saw the birthday gifts left to the daughters, the balloons and presents festooning the graves. When I saw it I broke down. I had too much grief in me at that time anyway.
This crime has tainted a close knit and friendly community. I cannot visit that park I used to play in as a child, go and visit Dad or even go for a pint in a local pub without being reminded of this atrocious act. I had hoped that the place would move on from this, but seeing that only now in merely a legal sense are they getting any closure, it will be many years hence that this wound actually starts to heal.
One hopes that certain things one treasures such as places from one's own childhood, could remain safe and cocooned from the predations of the big bad world. But all this has shown is is that now nothing, not even our past, is ever safe or likely to remain untainted. There are vicious murderous swine everywhere, and their crimes touch all of our lives and even reach back and pollute our memories, leaving us with nothing but the here and now. At least though, the rest of us still have a future, which is more than can be said for the Power family.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Aug 17, 2006
Well, this just about says it all.
Posted Jun 16, 2006
If the Royal flamin Academy can't tell the difference between a work of art and a plinth, then perhaps it's time they stopped bothering:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/5081744.stm
Artists, art critics and their hangers-on have been indulged for far too bloody long. It's got to the point where they can't even differentiate between the crap they produce and everyday objects.
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Jun 16, 2006
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