Volume 56
2 Oct 2004
Looks like the latest Firefox nightlies have fixed the SSL problems, or at least some of them.
Hmmm, Black Books Series 3 is out on DVD so now I can see the last episode which I missed. Seems there will not be a Series 4. Probably a good thing in some ways.
1 Oct 2004
For those who don't delve into the comments, here is a picture of Tokyo eki no kaisatsuguchi. (改札口) Arigato gozaimasu, Ken-san. ii desu yo.
30 Sep 2004
Honest personals - I suspect some people will call these people because they think that can't be as bad as they sound. I bet they will get a surprise.
But why Scottish Leather? (I can't imagine anything worse than an enclosed space that reeked of tanned cowhide, but never mind)
No, there wasn't meant to be a link on "at the Tokyo station ticket gate". I just like the word kaisatsuguchi. Note that there is no Japanese word for platform (it's puratto hoomo - a loan word) but there is a word that appears to be reserved solely for the ticket gate. Which of course most railways stations in the UK no longer have. Languages are great.
29 Sep 2004
Tokyo eki no kaisatsuguchi de
28 Sep 2004
27 Sep 2004
RIP Francoise Sagan
RIP Ernie Ball - great strings
26 Sep 2004
25 Sep 2004
24 Sep 2004
23 Sep 2004
22 Sep 2004
My Japanese evening class started tonight which will be fun.
RIP Russ Meyer
WRT the Home Computer picture yesterday, yes, I know it's a fake (it turns out to be from a Fark photoshop competition) but I thought it was too good not to post.
21 Sep 2004
Blast it, all the recent Firefox snapshots won't connect with SSL properly. Grrr.
20 Sep 2004
Who are the irreligious right?
wooo, fantastic rainbow outside my window.
19 Sep 2004
At about 1.30 this morning I realised that Bert Jansch's Angie is the Stairway to Heaven of folk guitarists.
18 Sep 2004
Freedom - phillip suggests that this is classified as Hmmmmmmm, and I agree. (I really get more classification icons. I wonder what the icon for Hmmmmmmm should be?)
17 Sep 2004
Penny is sitting reading a book about Study Skills and came to something about how people underline statements in books in pencil rather than ideas. Someone had underlined the paragraph in pencil...
I have a couple of domain names that are up for renewal and today I got letters from some bunch calling themselves "Domain Services" or something trying to charge me 60 quid per name to renew them. They aren't actual invoices but if you didn't know what was going on you would very likely pay them - I wonder if this is actually legal and who I can report them too if it isn't.
16 Sep 2004
RIP Johnny Ramone
15 Sep 2004
14 Sep 2004
Want one of these - excellent idea. Of course, I have a worm bin, but I'm not that keen on all those worms....
I've been thinking about non-Euclidian railways : where you go far enough and the lines meet. An idea before its time perhaps.
13 Sep 2004
12 Sep 2004
As I type this I am looking at a box labelled "Selected Lard". Imagine being a lard selector!
11 Sep 2004
I wonder if you can get Magnetic Japanese - you know, the Fridge Potery stuff. It comes in languages other than English so why not Japanese? Can't find it though. It would be a good learning aid.
10 Sep 2004
9 Sep 2004
Blast, I have tennis elbow. I wish there was a more exotic (and accurate) name for it though (I know the medical name). I haven't played tennis for more than 30 years. I was playing rounders last week though.
I just switched off 2 of the 3 machines in my office. The remaining one has silent fans and the silence is astonishing. Of course it will now be cold in winter.
8 Sep 2004
7 Sep 2004
6 Sep 2004
This is a test
5 Sep 2004
Went to the beach today. Lovely weather - not a breath of wind.
4 Sep 2004
3 Sep 2004
2 Sep 2004
I added a whole load of links today and they have vanished, so if you sent me soemthing good and it isn't showing then it's probably because the update was failing. *sigh*
1 Sep 2004
WRFF! WTF? This is so ludicrous. Go to the tricks page (if you can work out the awful navigation) and have a look at riders showing off their "sickest tricks", and at the same time looking complete pratts. And don't forget to watch the advert featuring Snoop Dogg - he must be desperate to get involved with that! (Gizmodo comments "Snoop will rap about low-interest mortgages if you pay him to.")
31 Aug 2004
I'm glad I didn't go for a bandwidth limited broadband package - we used nearly 5G this month and we were away for some of the time too.
I really do think that Apple should send me a G5 iMac so that I can review it for the benefit of all you well-heeled early adopters out there. And of course, any other hardware manufacturers, book publishers, Audio and video producers, clothing manufacturers etc. etc. should clearly also do the same.
30 Aug 2004
Just watched "Thoroughly Modern Millie" - one of my all time favourite films.
29 Aug 2004
RIP Foster
28 Aug 2004
Hamster coats again - can someone explain why hamster coats are more inhumane than any other furcoat?
27 Aug 2004
RIP Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Bunny of the Month Club - "Something dreadful in the mail each month to brighten your life" I get that most mornings from my cat.
26 Aug 2004
25 Aug 2004
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Nice snippet from techdirt : A few years ago, someone I know shared a story of how he jumped into the online dating world with a bit of gusto -- replying to a post on Craigslist in great detail, spending quite a bit of time perfecting the reply, as it appeared that the woman in question matched everything he wanted. He included a link to an old photo (the only one he could think of that was available) in which he had a shaved head, though he pointed out in the email that he had since grown back his hair. After not receiving a reply, he visited Craigslist the next day, and discovered the identical ad from the same woman, with one small adjustment: "no bald guys."
24 Aug 2004
Raining stupidly heavily. I'm getting bored by it.
23 Aug 2004
22 Aug 2004
21 Aug 2004
20 Aug 2004
I heard a track last night by New Found Glory (in fact it's the one for which there is a video available) and liked it a lot, though the video is crap. I don't know anything about them : I can't even classify their sound, it's probably darkcore EMO or something :-). I need a young person to fill me in.
Date to Save - can't decide if this is a real manifestation of what the Children of God called "Flirty Fishing" or if it is a spoof.
19 Aug 2004
I just got this DVD that says "Contains moderate language and sex references". Why warn me about moderate language, surely it is immoderate language I need to be warned about? Or is it language references I am being warned about?
18 Aug 2004
Hindu wing-nuts (Warning : nasty images on the front page and serious religous hatred - it probably isn't even worth bothering about)
What I want to is where are all the wing-nut Hindus, Buddhists etc. so that I can give equal time to them - there is no religious discrimination here.
Reason to believe in God - they claim that kidney stones are evidence for a designed universe!
17 Aug 2004
Someone sent me mail at my gmail account inviting me to open a gmail account. Odd.
I just discovered that the guy who wrote Ed Anger for the Weekly World News died in February. A great loss to satire.
I just came across the most astonishingly ranting hate site. So crazy and liable to offend that I am not even going to post the link. But it's a classic, take it from me.
16 Aug 2004
15 Aug 2004
It turns out that there isn't that much foam in a shaving cream can. However, I wonder what would happen if you did this with one of that hard setting foam filler stuff. (Apart from ruining whatever you filled with foam).
14 Aug 2004
White powder gold "Thermo-gravimetric analysis has revealed that, at certain high temperatures, the material weight of M-state elements will reduce substantially, even to the degree that they will levitate. In specific circumstances they also have the ability to become superconductive and to resonate in parallel dimensions." How do they know about the parallel dimensions then? I suspect that the only gold levitating here will be from other people's pockets into theirs.....
I am really taken with the idea of freezing a can of shaving foam in liquid nitrogen, peeling off the metal and leaving it to thaw out in an enclosed space.
13 Aug 2004
Not having much luck finding any of these proposed non-ranting religious sites.
Proof that animals go to heaven - where "proof" means that they can find a passage in the Bible that backs them up. An odd definition of proof methinks.
Behind the Badge of a Deputy Sherrif - I was looking for some of these putative "be happy in heaven sites" and came across this, not that it is actually that kind of site as it still rants a lot.
12 Aug 2004
Bill Osbourne - stylized Christian Art. I suspect the style it is ized in is the one classed as "naff in the extreme". Please note that Mr Osbourne appears not to proofread his pictures, unless "Dear Pants" is a close friend or something.
Oh, 10 points and Cottage are good too.
Mike Harding - I saw him in 1974 and I blocked the view of the person behind me who, though nothing to do with this event, I later married.
Everyone seems to be going on about Rick James. I've never heard of him.
11 Aug 2004
RIP Sacha Distel (a while ago now)
Hakoiri Musume - a daughter in a box
Oya no sune o kajiru - to bite one's parent's shin
10 Aug 2004
RIP Bernard Levin, Fay Wray (and rather late, Henri Cartier Bresson)
Perseids this week. Of course it is raining and cloudy here. As usual when there is a chance of a good meteor shower.
Forgot to mention the real bummer event of the holiday. I saw a pretty nice Regal square neck dobro copy in a shop for a good price, thought about it, went back to buy it and it had been sold. *sigh* I hope this means that I wasn't meant to buy it because something better is going to come along. I doubt it though.
Went to see the 5678s last night - they were good. Go see them if their tour is passing you. Also playing were the Everlasting First who had a sound of Steppenwolf to them and nice guitar solos, and The Sound Explosion who were driven along by a very compelling drummer and had a definite early 70s sound to them at times. All in all an excellent evening, even if my ears are still ringing.
Quantum Sleeper - this is creepy. The photo of the two people is creepy is as well for some reason.
9 Aug 2004
On the previous, make sure to check out Joleen's Dogg - especially good mash-up
There was some discussion about the "cone of silence". It is mentioned in Get Smart (here's another link). It was also mentioned in Dune as someone suggested, though I have never read the it. I must be honest and say that if you had asked me I would have said it was in Woody Allen's Bananas or perhpas Barabarella, but I certainly watched Get Smart so that's probably where I got it.
Well, here I am again. Only rained once!