Journal Entries
Wimbledon
Posted Jul 2, 2003
Here we are then, into the second half of Wimbledon fortnight - just about my favourite two weeks of the year 
I must admit though, by this point in the tournament, things can be getting either very good or very ho-hum. Either way, I hardly leave the house during these two weeks.
During the first week you get to see a whole raft of new and relatively unknown faces as well as the superstars, and there's always the chance of an upset as top a seed makes an early exit from SW19. By the time we get around to the quarter finals though, most of the underdogs have left and we usually have only the big hitters to contend with. In the mens game that means a lot of power and a good deal less skill. It used to be the other way round in womens tennis, but power is slowly edging out skill there too 
The Americans seem to love Wimbledon - there's much talk on the two channels showing it here (ESPN and NBC) about tradition, about the most famous tennis court in the world, about strawberries and cream... and about 'jolly old England' 
Bit patronising, that is.
Still. Ever since I can remember I've enjoyed Wimbledon, even though I don't particularly like tennis and I don't watch any of the other Grand Slams. In fact, the first time that I saw one of them, I wondered where the grass was. I never knew that tennis was played on anything other than grass, and I still have something of a hard time getting my head around the idea of playing it on any other surface unless it's indoors.
I can vaguely remember seeing Rod Laver and Pancho Gonzales playing... whether it was in the final or not I don't know.
Wimbledon means summer to me. Especially it means midsummer, when the daylight is at its longest. In the London at this time of the year you can be sitting outside a pub at 10pm and there's still a glimmer of the sunset in the northwestern sky. If the weather in the UK is good at this time of the year, it's magnificent. And of course, Wimbledon fortnight always coincided with the beginning of the school holidays
It also means standards. Old fashioned standards some may say, but standards I have a certain respect for. Doing things right. I'd like to be able to say 'not bowing to commercial pressure', but I guess the Wimbledon organisers have had to bow to it to an extent. But just like the BBC, the Centre Court isn't festooned with ads and commercials, which is a lot more than you can say for almost every single major stadium or professional sports venue around the world.
Yeah, I like Wimbledon.
Discuss this Journal entry [12]
Latest reply: Jul 2, 2003
Dagnammit!!!
Posted Jul 1, 2003
I've just seen a bloke on tv who's invented a keyboard... which has no keys. It's in a pair of gloves, and it's so obvious it makes you wonder "Why the bloody hell didn't I think of that?"
http://www.kittytech.com
He says that he's a workaholic who drinks a lot of 
, and he was frustrated by all the time he lost each time he went to the break room to get a beverage (all of 10 minutes 
), so he came up with this idea to go with a portable pc and a heads-up display.
It works like this - he's taken a pair of ordinary tight-fitting gloves and put contacts on them in such a way that he can touch type with the same fingers you'd use on a qwerty keyboard. Each finger has a contact at the end, and on the thumb there are three contacts representing the top, middle, and bottom rows of letters. If he wants to type a 'q', he touches the contact of his left pinkie to the top contact of the left thumb, 'h'is the right index finger to the middle contact of the right thumb, and 'x' would be left ring finger to the bottom contact of the left thumb.
Obviously that only covers the letters, but this is a prototype, and he's already working on one which will give upper and lower case, 'Enter', 'Esc', 'Tab', numbers, and most of the other keys you need on a pc. So simple, so damn clever.
And he's already got the patent issue sorted
Discuss this Journal entry [37]
Latest reply: Jul 1, 2003
Yum :-P
Posted Jul 1, 2003
Mrs Gosho and I went to http://www.amysicecream.com last night and I had Guinness ice cream 
It was... interesting. Very subtle, just a hint of the Guinness, a slightly bitter aftertaste which gave a suggestion of the which is actually in there, and it wasn't black - it was a kind of magnolia colour.
It was real nice
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Jul 1, 2003
Accrington Stanley... who are dey?
Posted Jul 1, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/3033136.stm
I used to go walking up on the Coppice every night after work. It never failed to astonish me that in a town full of... whatever the population of Accrington is - maybe 50,000, so few people did the same thing. I almost always had the place to myself. Occasionally I'd bump into some old bloke walking his dog, and there was a farmer I'd chat with from time to time. He wore an old policemans tunic that he'd got from a surplus store, and told me a tale about how he'd never married after having been sued for breach of promise. I can't remember the full story. As far as I could tell he lived in house which had no electricity.
I don't really know how I'd feel about this new sign if I still lived in Accy, especially if it messed up the view from the Coppice. Maybe I'll dig out a couple of photos I took while I was up there and put 'em up on me website 
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Jul 1, 2003
Welcome to the 20th century Texas
Posted Jun 26, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3022026.stm
Now let's see if you can drag yourself into the 21st
............
During my lifetime.
Discuss this Journal entry [22]
Latest reply: Jun 26, 2003
There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho
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