Stuff v.3

Bye bye blogger

2008-06-01T15:48:00.002+10:00

So! Haven't been here a while; almost a year, in fact. No real reason - life happened (there was this and this and many other things), but mostly I lost interest. Also, well, facebook.

But! I've been posting quite a few links to my facebook profile recently, and have been getting more and more annoyed at how limiting that method is. So! I'm going to try to keep a blog again... but not here. So, please direct your browsers over to Just Some Things, my new wordpress site.

Good bye, Blogger. It's been fun, albeit with large doses of frequent frustration!

Score!

2007-06-17T10:44:00.001+10:00

I am a Word Shoot champion!

Amy Winehouse - Teach me tonight

2007-06-08T23:13:00.001+10:00

One day I'll stop raving about Amy Winehouse... but today is not that day. 'Teach me tonight' is one of my all-time favourite songs, and she absolutely nails it in this video. It's like she's directly channelling Dinah Washington. Classic.

Explain away

2007-06-05T12:08:00.000+10:00

I'm a huge fan of Slate's Explainer section, which provides answers to all kinds of random and bizarre questions, as well as the slightly puzzling, everyday kind. Some of my favourites:

Bees Overseas: How do spelling contests work in other countries?
Erotic Services 101: When is a massage more than a massage?
Should I Snort My Dad?: The dangers of inhaling a cremated parent. (Apparently it's only dangerous "if you make a habit of it.")
I like this one mostly just for the title - What Would Jesus Smoke?: The Christian doctrine on bong hits.
I Mailed a Letter to Paris...Who pays the French to deliver it?
Does James Bond Have a License To Kill?: The rules and regulations of British intelligence, explained.
What Are the Protests Like at Gallaudet?: Chants and cheers in American Sign Language. (Gallaudet is a university for the Deaf in Washington, DC. There were large-scale protests there last year.)
Pin the Tail on the Dolphin: How to attach a prosthetic flipper. (Special bonus material: Mine-hunting dolphins!)
How Heavy Is a 500-Pound Bomb?: Six hundred and six pounds.
Why Do They Club Seals?: Can't they just shoot them?
How Did Airbus Ace Its Airplane Evacuation Test?: There were only 33 injuries.
What Does a Chinese Keyboard Look Like?: How they type in the PRC.
This is George Bush. Is Anders Rasmussen Available?: How world leaders make phone calls.

Facebook is taking over the world

2007-05-28T11:12:00.000+10:00

Article at TechCrunch about the new Facebook Platform, that gives third-party developers access to the facebook API so that their applications can be integrated with the website. There's some pretty fascinating facts and figures there: "Facebook is growing 3% per week, which is 100,000 new users per day", it's the "6th most trafficked site in the U.S.", and "50% of registered users come back to the site every day." That's some impressive stuff.

I'm not usually a fan of social networking sites, but I have very quickly become hopelessly addicted to facebook. Of course, it helps that it's not hideously ugly like myspace (I do not understand how people can spend any significant length of time on that website). One of the main reasons that I don't post here much anymore is that slowly but surely my entire life is being moved over to facebook!

Unseen Doctor Who!

2007-05-23T16:44:00.001+10:00

Very exciting discovery on youtube! Unseen Doctor Who! Just after the regeneration! Hooray! (yes, I'm obsessed.)

Amy Winehouse goodness

2007-05-23T15:31:00.000+10:00

My obsession with everything Amy Winehouse continues! I bought her latest CD on the weekend, Back to Black, and have been playing it continuously ever since. 'Rehab' is still particularly fabulous, but I'm also a big fan of the song Tears dry on their own, which sounds a bit like The Supremes, but on speed (this is a good thing).

There are a few remixes of the song Rehab on youtube. The one by Jay-Z is a perfect example of how not to do a remix - absolute, unadulterated crap. This one, however, by Desert Eagle Discs, is pure, unadulterated gold (the video's pretty good, too). If you don't want to watch the video, you can just listen to the song on the group's myspace page.

The Obama Effect

2007-05-22T10:06:00.000+10:00

Fascinating article about what has been called, at various times, the "Bradley effect," "Wilder effect," or the "Dinkins effect," and what could possibly be the "Obama effect." Apparently pre-election polls often overstate the strength of black candidates in the US, because "white poll respondents are reluctant to tell African-American telephone interviewers that they are not going to vote for the black candidate." The effect is also seen when polling data is collected via face-to-face interviews.

The point is made, however, that the candidate does make a difference - "Jesse Jackson was identified as a black leader, Obama is seen as a Senator from Illinois who happens to be black."

Monday madness!

2007-05-14T22:55:00.000+10:00

Haven't done this for a while... (this week's questions are here.)

1. Which web browser do you prefer?
Firefox! Although I'm forced to use IE at work, which is supremely painful.

2. Are you a PC user or MAC user?
PC - I drool all over the look of Macs, but then find I can't get anything done when I have to use one.

3. Will your next computer purchase happen within the next year (do you think)?
I only got my current laptop last year, so it'll probably be a while before I upgrade again. So far (touch wood) I haven't had a single problem with this one.

4. Will you purchase your next computer at a local store or via the internet?
Probably the internet; my current laptop is a Dell, and ordering it online was completely painless.

5. Have you had any experience with Windows Vista?
My Dad just got a new laptop, and it's on there.

6. What are your feelings about this new operating system (if any)?
I haven't had much of a go at it, but it seems fine to me. Personally I think people expect a little too much from Microsoft when they launch a new operating system: you can't do something completely and utterly radical when your software is on 95% of computers across the world. Although, I've been using the new Office for a while now, and that's pretty revolutionary, and in a good way!

Things I've read

2007-05-14T22:24:00.000+10:00

A few articles I've found interesting lately:

There and Back Again, by Nick Paumgarten, looks at the phenomenon of the commute in the US. Paumgarten rides along with one woman who travels six and a half hours a day to and from work. He makes the very good point that, for many people, the extra two hours of leisure time granted by the introduction "of the eight-hour workday are now passed in solitude. You have cup holders for company." What's the point of having that extra time if you spend it in your car, on your own?

Handguns in Roxbury, Tanks in Baghdad, by Wick Sloane, made me cry the first time I read it. Sloane, a writing teacher at a community college in the States, describes what happened after one of his students was shot and killed. Although I think he stumbles a little towards the end when he tries to connect the murder to the financial inequities that exist in the education system, it's an important point to make, and still a moving story.

Philip Weiss examines a new kind of radicalism at Columbia University, in
One, Two, Three, Four, Can a Columbia Movement Rise Once More? Apparently Students for a Democratic Society, one of the most important and prominent student political organisations of the 1960s, has reformed. As Weiss points out though, the Israel/Palestine issue makes everything just a bit more complicated this time around.

And finally, on a slightly more bizarre note,
Girth and Nudity, a Pictorial Mission: Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame) is taking photographs of obese women.

Life, university, and everything

2007-05-10T16:29:00.000+10:00

I had a surprisingly good day at work today, which happens infrequently enough that I thought I should mark the occasion with a post!

Part of my job involves talking to high-school kids about uni, about what it is and why you should apply and, most importantly, why you should come to my uni in particular. Today it was a group of 14 and 15 year-olds, who I usually dread. But this group turned out to be kinda fantastic: polite and engaged and actually interested in what we all had to say. The two things that seemed to really resonate the most was that, firstly, it's ok if you don't know what you want to do when you leave school, and secondly, it's ok to change your mind. I occasionally get asked what my best piece of advice is for new university students, and those two things are what I say every time. Plus, high-school is just something to endure before you get to uni, but the teachers don't often like that one.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do once I finished school, apart from go to uni to do... something. I still don't really know what I want to do once I (finally) finish my degree, but increasingly I'm getting to be ok with that. I see so many high-school students who are freaking out because people keep on asking them what they want to do with their lives. If I can't work it out at the age of 22, how on earth are they supposed to at the age of 16 or 17?

Most of the high-school students I talk to seem to view picking a uni degree as some enormous, unchangeable decision, when in reality I think it's one of the most flexible, changeable decisions that you can ever make. It'd be interesting to do some kind of study of how people's career plans and their major interests change over the course of their time at uni. I unexpectedly discovered a passion for American history; others decide administrative law is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or that being an actuary is indescribably (and inexplicably!) sexy. I don't think it's made clear enough to students that the preferences that you put down on your uni application form do not have to dictate how the rest of your life pans out, and more often than not, they don't. And it's this omission which often makes my job equally frustrating and fabulous, like today.

I have heaps more to say on this subject, but this is all starting to sound a little like a careers advice talk, so I'll stop. Also, it's 5pm, so I get to leave my boring, 9 to 5 job!

You can eat off pretty much any surface in this house

2007-05-07T22:32:00.000+10:00

We have our first house inspection tomorrow, so tonight saw an extreme flurry of cleaning in preparation. I don't think it's at all an exaggeration to say that not only is this house now the cleanest it's ever been, but that it is, in actual fact, the cleanest house in the entire world. If the agents find even one thing wrong with this gleaming example of cleanliness tomorrow, I cannot vouch for the sanity of myself or my housemates.

And now, to bed. Cleaning is tiring! Not to mention I had a root canal this morning (whole other story), which I've found can also take it out of you a bit :)

Po-mo

2007-05-06T20:00:00.000+10:00

Quote of the afternoon:

I'm so po-mo, Foucault isn't even po-mo enough for me!

I love it when pretentious arts students get together...

Comic

2007-05-06T13:14:00.000+10:00

Nerdy American history comic! Hooray! (found by Crip, who kindly emailed it to me)
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Metallica doco

2007-05-01T11:49:00.000+10:00

As a public service announcement, I'm telling you all that SBS is showing Metallica: Some Kind of Monster this Saturday night at 10.10pm. I've raved about this movie before, and I'll rave about it again: even if you absolutely loathe Metallica I promise you'll find something enjoyable in this doco, even if it is just laughing at the therapist Dr Phil.

McSweeney's list hilarity

2007-04-30T20:00:00.000+10:00

What People Said Tornadoes Sounded Like Before the Invention of the Freight Train: "Really heavy men jogging".

But I said no, no, no

2007-04-30T13:14:00.000+10:00

I've been listening to Rehab by Amy Winehouse pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours, except for when I listened to F**k Me Pumps instead. Seriously addictive stuff.

"Rewriting the Ad Rules for Muslim-Americans"

2007-04-28T09:25:00.000+10:00

Interesting article in the New York Times about attempts by companies to market to Muslim-Americans. I thought this little tid-bit was particularly telling:

Ms. Salzman said JWT [an advertising agency] had little trouble surveying Muslims in Britain, but found it had to clarify at the start of each phone call in the United States that it was not calling from a government agency.

Feeding my Doctor Who obsession

2007-04-23T20:48:00.001+10:00

I've become, well, mildly obsessed with Doctor Who lately. And now that I have quite a lot of free time on my hands, as well as a less than taxing day job, I'm able to fully indulge this obsession by finding random Doctor Who-related videos on youtube. Which is how I came across this episode of The Graham Norton Show, with David Tennant (aka the tenth doctor) as special guest.

I swear to God, this is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Below is part 1; make sure you watch all 4 parts so that you don't miss where stoner Alex really does travel through time and space.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

(On a side note: god it's an enormous amount of hassle to embed a video from youtube! You've got to sign up and then add your blog and make sure that you select blogger beta rather than just plain old blogger and... bah. Very annoying all round.)

It'd be sad if it wasn't so hilarious

2007-04-20T14:09:00.000+10:00

Ways that you know you've been spending too much at the physio lately: when the physio offers you a job.

That's three job offers in a week. High five to me!

Abortion ban

2007-04-19T15:33:00.000+10:00

The US Supreme Court has voted to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The decision is "the first in which the court has upheld a ban on a specific method of abortion".

The decision is pretty, well, stupid for many different reasons, not least of which is that Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, "said that pregnant women or their doctors could assert an individual need for a health exception by going to court to challenge the law as it applied to them." Because when you're gravely ill and need a termination, you definitely time to wait around for the Supreme Court to make up its mind. Norma Leah McCorvey, more famously known as the 'Roe' in Roe v. Wade, waited three years for her case to go before the Court. In the meantime, she of course had given birth - bit hard to get access to an abortion when your daughter is 3 years old. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsurg quite rightly points out, this is unrealistic and "gravely mistaken".

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion is incredible (and yes, I have enough time on my hands now to read dissenting Supreme Court opinions - you too can experience the fun here; the dissenting opinion starts on page 49 of the pdf). She methodically goes through all of her objections to the Court's ruling, labelling the justifications used to avoid including any exception to protect a woman's health "flimsy and transparent". As she so rightly points out,

The law saves not a single fetus from destruction, for it targets only a method of performing abortion...the procedures deemed acceptable might put a woman's health at greater risk.

She goes on to say that

Eliminating or reducing women's reproductive choices is manifestly not a means of protecting them. When safe abortion procedures cease to be an option, many women seek other means to end unwanted or coerced pregnancies.

She's particularly hard on the sections of the majority opinion that seek to 'protect' women and their 'fragile states' from any emotional pain because of the "bond of love the mother has for her child." As she says,

This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution - ideas that have long since been discredited.

She quotes some past Supreme Court decisions that make this evolution in beliefs clear. I particularly liked this one, from the 1873 decision Bradwell v. State:

Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life...The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil[l] the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.

I could go on quoting her opinion for a very long time, but instead I'll just leave you with this, her final paragraph:

In sum, the notion that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act furthers any legitimate governmental interest is, quite simply, irrational. The Court's defense of the statute provides no saving explanation. In candor, the Act, and the Court's defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court - and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives.

Cakes made of awesome

2007-04-19T10:52:00.000+10:00

Threadcakes! Threadless t-shirt designs on cakes! Awesome!

A few things have happened recently...

2007-04-17T22:50:00.000+10:00

So yes. I dropped out of uni. Maybe some very belated explanations are in order?

It's just for this semester, and I fully intend to go back in semester 2. I already had a little tiny neurosis about the fact that I was going to be almost 24 by the time I graduated; dealing with the fact that I will now be almost 25 when I finally finish my bloody undergrad degree has been, well... challenging. But! The decision is made, the forms are in (although, funny story: looks like the uni has actually lost my form, which should be fun), and I've moved on. Pretty much.

Of course, the decision was made a lot easier by the fact that it would have been pretty much impossible for me to finish this semester. I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that so far 2007 has been pretty crap. I mentioned a while ago (February 23 to be exact) that my back has been giving me a bit of trouble. Yeah, I'm still having a few problems - problems which mean that have seen my visit the physio 8 times in the last 7 weeks. At the moment I'm going twice a week, as well as half an hour of exercises twice a day. There was about a week there in the middle when I pretty much could not move; standing up for more than 5 minutes was excruciating, and sitting was completely out of the question unless I had very large amounts of strapping tape covering my lower back. I missed a bit of class because of that, as you might imagine.

And then my mum had a massive stroke.

The stroke happened on the evening of March 20, but my dad didn't call me or my brother until the next day at around 6am; it was the stereotypical early morning call, where your first thought is "no-one calls at this hour with good news." Which was true. I was on a flight at 9.15am (as an aside, I think I deserve some crazy respect for my high level of organisational ability that morning!), and made it to Hobart just after 12pm - mum had been transferred from Launceston by air-ambulance because apparently they don't have a neurology ward at the LGH. Who knew.

Anyway, the next week or so was as crap as you can probably imagine. There was brain surgery and ICU and then HDU and living out of a suitcase and only two visitors at a time and... well yeah. Not a fabulous time.

And then of course there was the unnecessary stress of trying to work out what I do about my courses, with the HECS census date fast approaching. So I came back to Canberra the next week on the Wednesday before the census date, met with various people, including all my lecturers, my physio, and faculty advisors, and decided to drop out. I'd promised one of my lecturers (who was absolutely wonderful, by the way - went far far beyond the call of duty in helping me out, and I'm not sure I would have made it through that week without his help) that I wouldn't make my final decision until Friday afternoon, and I didn't: the form was handed in at 4.50pm, so no-one can accuse me of rushing into the decision!

I'd originally planned to move back down to Tassie until July, but after talking to even more people etc. I've decided to stay up here and work full-time, which will hopefully earn me enough money to do the travelling I'm desperate for, and to take some of the 'financial burden' off my parents' shoulders. My boss up here has been absolutely fantastic throughout this entire debacle, and while she couldn't offer my a full-time job, she made sure that she found me someone who could, which means that as of today I have gainful full-time employment until classes go back in July!

So yeah. That's what has been happening in the life of me. There are a whole lot of other issues both related and unrelated to all of this which have been going on and for various reasons I don't particularly feel like airing on a public blog. As I said before, life has been generally crappy the last few months, but things are looking better. My mum's doing well; she's been transferred back up to the LGH, which makes it easier for everyone. She can talk and write and speak and everything like that - it turns out if you're going to have a massive stroke, my mum did it pretty well. She's still fully paralysed down her left side, so she's got months and months of rehab ahead of her (side note: many hilarious conversations can be had with the phrase "my mum's in rehab"!) - I don't think anyone was expecting me not to take out the 'most physio in 2007' award for my family, but looks like I might just be beaten by my mother...

But yesterday she wiggled her toes and today she bent her knee. So right now, things could be a hell of a lot worse.

Um, yeah

2007-03-30T16:45:00.000+10:00

So I just submitted a form to drop out of uni for a semester. Discuss (while I have a minor freak out).

Super stunt

2007-03-18T11:58:00.000+11:00

The Super Stunt: this story is bloody incredible. A group of guys managed to get two vanloads of 'party lights' through ridiculous levels of security at the last Super Bowl, that they then gave out to the audience to spell out a secret message at half-time. Crazy stuff. Make sure you also check out the Michael Jackson credit card prank as well...

High five to the internets!

2007-03-13T20:02:00.000+11:00

For all you high five fans out there, this gem from Overheard in New York:

Guy #1: Dude, are you rolling on E, man? High five!
Guy #2, slowly with eyes closed: High five my face.

Just tell me what's going on!

2007-03-07T22:38:00.000+11:00

Interesting article in the Washington Post about how universities are struggling to keep in contact with their students. Even though they all have mobile phones and laptops, and obsessively check their email, getting important messages out there to all students (the example given is one from Virginia Tech, where there was a gunman loose on campus and they wanted to tell students to keep inside!) is incredibly difficult. When you've got to filter through crap emails from everyone from the careers centre to student admin on a regular basis, it's pretty easy for actually important information to slip through unnoticed.

My uni had an emergency of its own last week, and I must say was absolutely woeful in keeping everyone updated. Because I'm on the staff list I got an email telling me the campus was closed at 10.45am, but they didn't send out a similar one to students until 4.28pm! Information was posted throughout the day on the billboard, but it was pretty fragmentary and useless. Announcements went out on local radio, but how many uni students actually listen to local commercial radio every morning? If your house wasn't really affected by the storm (like ours) you wouldn't think to listen obsessively to see whether uni was open or not; just wouldn't cross your mind. The only reason that we listened was that one of our housemates had tried to go to the gym early in the morning and had run into just a few problems (i.e. flooding and ice!).

I get that it was a pretty unique situation, and understandably there were some computing issues on campus at the time that made getting in contact with people a bit difficult. But really, these are the kinds of situations where you need procedures like that to work the best.

Classic McSweeney's

2007-03-05T22:53:00.000+11:00

Some Other Zapruder Films: Ricky Zapruder's Birthday Party.

Everything goes smoothly until, in the last 33 seconds of the film, Richard Nixon appears in the background, ambling up to the sliding door and pressing his face against the glass. His hands are covered in blood, and he appears to be holding a pitchfork. His eyes dart nervously as he tries to see what's happening inside.

Linky linky

2007-03-03T20:23:00.000+11:00

Just a couple of links:

For those of you (like me), who are just a tad addicted to a little website called facebook, you might want to have a look at this article, about how what you do on social networking sites can make you lose a job, get you into trouble with university administration, and scare off potential employers. Equal parts bizarre and scary (make sure you read the linked story from a few months ago, too).

And from Overheard in New York, it's funny because it's true.

Little boy #1: I wish dinosaurs lived in Central Park.
Little boy #2: Dinosaurs aren't real -- they're from the TV.
Little boy #3: Dinosaurs are real, they just live on other planets.
Little boy #2: Like Pluto!
Little boy #1: Pluto isn't a planet anymore. The scientists blowed it up.

I know how you feel, kid. When I was his age...

Storm madness!

2007-02-28T16:58:00.000+11:00

Last night Canberra was hit by a 'supercell' storm, that dumped an enormous amount of hail and rain on the city in a short amount of time. Luckily our house (and neighbouring streets) escaped any damage, but the ANU? Absolutely totalled, it would seem. The campus isn't just closed for today, but for the rest of the week. It's like a snow day! The entire thing is just really bizarre. There are some great photos on flickr, as well as the ABC.

It's really weird to just be at home in the middle of the week. Of course, 90% of my classes are on Monday and Tuesday so I'm not actually missing out on much at all... but still, very weird!

Overheard at university

2007-02-27T16:09:00.000+11:00

One philosophy lecturer turns to another and says, "you know what I always found hilarious about Orthodox Judaism?"

Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch the punchline, but the mere fact that I overheard it all certainly brightened my day. Not exactly a phrase you hear on a regular basis...

Just some things

2007-02-23T22:27:00.000+11:00

Random thoughts and happenings from this week:

I've somehow managed to 'do my back in' again, which, as you may be able to appreciate, is terribly exciting for me. Sitting is the biggest issue, which is a bit of a problem considering that uni started this week and I have several 3 hour blocks of classes. Bleurgh.

I had three meetings on Wednesday, and I got stood up for all three of them. What ever happened to common courtesy?! To the "sorry, I can't make the meeting this afternoon, can we do it another time?" phone call. Double bleurgh.

As mentioned above, uni started back this week. Two of my subjects look fantastic, but the other two are so excruciatingly boring that they effectively cancel out any enjoyment I may derive from this semester. Triple bleurgh. Also bleurgh to my IT subject, which can't seem to organise seemingly important things like timetables and lab registrations with any level of adequacy.

Bleurgh. Some good news is needed... hooray for finally having net access at home! Very very exciting. I was getting a little tired of structuring my life around only being able to read my email between the hours of 9am and 5pm on weekdays. And yes, my life does depend, to a large amount, on when I can read my email :)

Random fact: did you know that there used to be a bar in the Pauline Griffin Building? The Union used to be in there, as well as the staff lounge. Strange but true. Well maybe not that strange, but still vaguely interesting. Well, maybe not vaguely interesting...

I've had the song 'This Land is Mine' by Dido in my head all week. Yeah, I have no idea why, either.

Also hooray for finally getting a dining table in our house. Literally eating off the floor gets a little boring after the first two months or so.

Hooray for still getting birthday presents over a week after my birthday. I absolutely love birthdays that are spread out over weeks (or even months, like my 21st). Although I'm not entirely sure about this whole 'being 22' thing; I feel really rather old, especially considering (1) there are far too many 17 year olds running around the campus, and (2) I now have to tick the 'fourth year' box when I fill in forms for the university, which makes me feel like I've been around forever. The gap between being 20 and being 21 didn't feel like much at all. The gap between 21 and 22, however... chasm.

And to end on an amusing note... a McSweeney's List: Mildly Disturbing Greeting-Card Messages. "Happy Easter! May the blood of Jesus, spilled for you, splatter your holiday with warm crimson cheer."

Damn kids!

2007-02-20T14:46:00.000+11:00

Meh. It's only the second day of uni and I'm already over it. When did university students get so bloody young?! The campus has been wonderfully quiet all summer, and then BAM! yesterday it was invaded by 17 year olds, wandering around looking lost and confused. I know I should feel sympathy or empathy or something like that, but mostly I just want them to go away. Bah.

I saw it somewhere...

2007-02-07T16:21:00.000+11:00

I've been pretty low on actual content recently, so to make up here's a very long list of...

What I've been watching! Hooray!

A Knight's Tale
I don't care what people say about his movie, I love it. So much fun! I've seen it so many times, but it's that kind of movie where you can just whack it in the DVD player, skip to any spot, and just sit back and enjoy it. Of course, it would have been pretty much absolute crap without the wonder that is Paul Bettany as Geoffery Chaucer. He actually won awards for that performance.

Logan's Run
This movie can be pretty much summed up with the statement "hilarious 70s sci-fi soft porn". Which, you know, is not necessarily a bad thing. The idea itself is really intriguing - society in the future that keeps its population under control by 'renewing' all its citizens at the age of 30 - and one that pops up pretty regularly in science fiction (I saw it most recently in an episode of Stargate Atlantis). But the execution is so hilariously bad that the message gets lost underneath crazy costumes and Farrah Faucett's hair.

Ocean's Eleven
One of my all-time favourite movies, and much like A Knight's Tale: complete and utter fun. It also has to be one of the greatest looking movies of all time, and not just because George Clooney and Brad Pitt are frequently in the same scenes, creating a critical mass of handsomeness so large that I'm surprised that screens don't spontaneously combust. Or something.

The Bourne Supremacy
Not as good as the first one, but some good moments. I watched the extras on the DVD though, and they kept on going on and on about how good the car chase was. My reaction to the car chase? Meh.

Old (new) Doctor Who episodes
Mostly I've been watching these to keep me going until the new episodes appear on Australian screens (Christmas has come and gone, ABC - when are we going to see the Christmas episode?!). This show is so incredibly fantastic; if you're not watching it, then you're obviously crazy. It's taken a lot of serious soul-searching, and it was a very difficult decision to make, but I think I prefer David Tennant over Christopher Eccelstone. Rose, of course, will always rock my world.

Lonelygirl15 videos
The definition of an internet sensation, these youtube videos became famous around the world a few months ago when it was revealed that, shock horror, Bree wasn't a real girl, and that she and all her friends were played by actors! You can find out the background story in this Wired story (Jessica Rose, the New Zealand actress who plays Bree, was on the front cover). I personally don't care at all whether the stories are real or not; they're just really good stories. There are drugs! And crazy cults! And secret codes! It's like Alias, but in 3 minute episodes, and with teenagers. You can kind of tell when the story broke that it wasn't real, because it's about then that 'The Creators' seemed to go "what the hell, now we can go all out with the completely unbelievable storylines!" I didn't have much else to do at work the last few weeks but watch youtube videos, so I went through and watched all of Bree's videos, plus those of the various associated characters - make sure you also check out those of danielBeast, jonastko and gemmers19. Of course, you can go really hard core and play the alternate reality game associated with the videos, called OpAphid. Find everything you could possibly want to know (and a lot more) about the game and the entire 'Bree-verse' at the LGPedia.

Foyle's War
It's back! One of my all-time favourite tv shows, the new series started on Sunday night on the ABC. And it was a ripper! There were brash Americans, illegal stills, and broken hearts - poor Sam. This show combines a whole heap of all my loves into one tv show: Britain during World War II, a good murder mystery, brooding detectives... seriously good stuff. Once again, I say that if you're not watching it, then you're obviously crazy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
This was repeated on ABC on Saturday night. I wrote a pretty lengthy review of it when it was first on tv back in 2004, and what I said back then still stands, but if possible I hated it even more the second time. The writers seemed to just take bits and pieces from all over the canon without any kind of eye to coherence and, well, common-sense, and so instead of producing a decent portrayal of the 'Great Detective', instead came up with a hideous charactiture. Yes, Sherlock Holmes used cocaine, but never during a case. Yes, he distrusted women, but he was not entirely immune to their 'charms' - the very first short story details his encounters with the woman, Irene Adler (read it for yourself here). And yes, he didn't like to leave England for fear that it caused an unhealthy level of excitement amongst the criminal classes, but let's not forget that he spent three years travelling the world whilst he was 'dead' - hardly the actions of a man who believes that travel narrows the mind. The writer is obviously a fan of the original stories, but in trying to remain faithful to the Canon, whilst incorporating a modern storyline of sexual perversion, he's created a hideous, unentertaining mish-mash.

Stranger Than Fiction
Saw this on Tuesday at the wonderful new Dendy in the Canberra Centre. I really liked the movie - a bit like I Heart Huckabees, but actually comprehensible. Will Ferrell is obviously wasted in most of the stupid comedies he's been in, when he can do great work like this. Emma Thompson was, as usual, fabulous. My personal favourite was Dustin Hoffman, who did a very convincing over-worked and eccentric university professor.

The wonders of modern science

2007-02-06T13:44:00.000+11:00

I can't stand wearing sunscreen - the smell, the greasiness, everything - which is not really a good thing, seeing as my skin burns at even the mention of sun. So I've decided that sunscreen mist is possibly the greatest thing ever invented. It's not greasy! It doesn't smell horrendous! You don't have to rub it in! It actually feels cool when you spray it! Hooray for innovation in sunscreen technology!

Don't you know who I am?!

2007-02-06T11:33:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was one of those infinitely frustrating days, where you set out with a list of seemingly simple tasks to complete, that quickly turn into a never-ending nightmare. Simple things like getting a prescription filled turned into day-long dramas: the chemist had run out of the (very common) medication on my prescription, I had to go to two banks in order to retrieve my bank card which was eaten by an ATM on Saturday, the ACT government office seemingly disappeared from Civic, the Motor Registry would only accept a complete lease agreement as proof of residency, not the bond lodgment form I had with me... what should have taken a couple of hours all up took the entire day, and I had to go back to the Motor Registry this morning, this time with enough forms of identification to sink a ship. But! The day was saved from being a complete bust by lunch and dinner, which were shared with fabulous company. So that was good.

On a slightly related matter: the reason I had to go to the Motor Registry (twice) was to get a proof of age card. I haven't had any 'official' forms of photo ID for the last two months, because both my Tasmanian Learner's Driver Licence and my passport both expired in December. Do you know how hard it is to live without that kind of stuff?! I couldn't even join the video store on the weekend. And yet my bank let me withdraw money from my account yesterday with only my crummy student card. Which does worry me slightly...

Prepare yourself!

2007-02-06T11:10:00.000+11:00

Bloglines has a marginally useful weather feed service, and I subscribe to the Canberra one, which gives you a 7-day forecast. I say marginally useful, because quite often the forecasts are a little off. For example, how seriously do you think I should take this one?:

Lunatics in history

2007-01-30T12:54:00.000+11:00

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

This guy sounds like my kinda lunatic! Here's the bio that came with the results:

Born in England sometime in the second decade of the nineteenth century, you carved a notable business career, in South Africa and later San Francisco, until an entry into the rice market wiped out your fortune in 1854. After this, you became quite different. The first sign of this came on September 17, 1859, when you expressed your dissatisfaction with the political situation in America by declaring yourself Norton I, Emperor of the USA. You remained as such, unchallenged, for twenty-one years.

Within a month you had decreed the dissolution of Congress. When this was largely ignored, you summoned all interested parties to discuss the matter in a music hall, and then summoned the army to quell the rebellious leaders in Washington. This did not work. Magnanimously, you decreed (eventually) that Congress could remain for the time being. However, you disbanded both major political parties in 1869, as well as instituting a fine of $25 for using the abominable nickname "Frisco" for your home city.

Your days consisted of parading around your domain - the San Francisco streets - in a uniform of royal blue with gold epaulettes. This was set off by a beaver hat and umbrella. You dispensed philosophy and inspected the state of sidewalks and the police with equal aplomb. You were a great ally of the maligned Chinese of the city, and once dispersed a riot by standing between the Chinese and their would-be assailants and reciting the Lord's Prayer quietly, head bowed.

Once arrested, you were swiftly pardoned by the Police Chief with all apologies, after which all policemen were ordered to salute you on the street. Your renown grew. Proprietors of respectable establishments fixed brass plaques to their walls proclaiming your patronage; musical and theatrical performances invariably reserved seats for you and your two dogs. (As an aside, you were a good friend of Mark Twain, who wrote an epitaph for one of your faithful hounds, Bummer.) The Census of 1870 listed your occupation as "Emperor".

The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, upon noticing the slightly delapidated state of your attire, replaced it at their own expense. You responded graciously by granting a patent of nobility to each member. Your death, collapsing on the street on January 8, 1880, made front page news under the headline "Le Roi est Mort". Aside from what you had on your person, your possessions amounted to a single sovereign, a collection of walking sticks, an old sabre, your correspondence with Queen Victoria and 1,098,235 shares of stock in a worthless gold mine. Your funeral cortege was of 30,000 people and over two miles long.

The burial was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.

Life-y kind of things

2007-01-23T15:51:00.000+11:00

Some random thoughts:

I am completely (embarrassingly?) obsessed with the song 'I wish I was a punkrocker' by Sandi Thom. The lyrics don't actually make much sense, but I can't stop listening to the thing (you can watch the film clip yourself here). And yes, I know I'm about a zillion years behind the times when it comes to this song.

For some reason the sound on the computer that I'm using at the moment just drops out every 15 minutes or so, and doesn't start working until I log out and log back in. This is immensely annoying, and is severely interfering with my ability to watch Sandi Thom music clips.

Pandora is still one of the greatest things ever invented, but only when the sound on the computer you're using works consistently!

Mini-rant about university bureaucracy: for the last three years I have had to go through an incredible rigmarole just to enrol in courses that I need for my degree. This year is different only in the fact that the difficulty has actually increased. The last two days I've spent my lunch break trudging between faculty offices, as various people try to work out who needs to sign what and when. It's incredibly frustrating and just plain stupid - why oh why do I have to go through all this shit to do a course that I need?! A 2-second glance at my transcript would show these people that I have every right to do the course in question, but instead I have to have a form signed by three separate offices, before it is sent to a fourth for processing. Argh!

And the sound's gone on my computer again. Curses!

Some McSweeney's Lists:
Things That Get Way More Fun When You Add a "G" to Them: "ceiling fang".
Things an Overbearing Mother Might Say to a Son Just Waking From a Coma: "Meanwhile, I haven't even had a chance to sit down."

I got two lovely emails today from separate people who I helped through my job last year, saying thank you etc. So that was nice. I rarely get any kind of sense as to how what I do (and no, I'm not going to go into any more detail about what my job is!) actually impacts upon people in the long-run, so once in a while it's nice to get these kinds of emails.

Sound still not there. Stupid computer. I want punkrocker goodness!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I've recently become ever so addicted to threadless t-shirts, and my collection now numbers 5. So that's exciting. I tried to find links on the website to the ones I've got, but no luck. Sufficed to say that I've got 'The Communist Party' and 'The Loch Ness Imposter', and you probably don't. So there.

Hmmm. Ok, enough now.

It's a Tuesday, so that means...

2007-01-23T10:29:00.000+11:00

Monday Madness!

1. Did you make any resolutions this year?
Not really; I vow to leave the country at least once in the next 12 months, but that's more out of desperation rather than a resolution kind of thing.

2. If so, which one do you think you'll really stick to? If not, is there something you're going to try harder to accomplish?
See above - if I don't leave the country, I'll be very upset!

3. Do you have a fear of any small rodents/insects/etc? If so, please share.
There are these beetles that practically infest my house in Tasmania over the summer months; we've always called them Christmas beetles, because that's when they start to appear, and a bit of googling seems to actually confirm that name (see here and here). These things are evil. They get in your hair, down your shirt, I've even had them crawl in my ear while I've been asleep. I don't fear these things as much as have a life-long vendetta against their very existence. Every few nights when I was at home I would go on a rampage with the fly spray against these little devils. Immensely satisfying.

4. Share something exciting that's going on in your life.
Not much of my life is all that exciting at the moment - just working 9 to 5, answering phones. I'm going to Wollongong on Friday for the long weekend to stay with a friend, which should be fun. Apart from that... maybe going to see a movie tonight? Honestly, I live an extremely boring and tame life; my main source of excitement is seeing what kind of crazy people catch my bus every night!

5. Did you wonder what happened to Monday Madness these past few weeks?
Only vaguely.

6. Do you have a favorite gameshow announcer?
Gameshow announcer?! Um, I saw Larry Emdur on Merrick and Rosso once, and he was absolutely hilarious. And very bitchy. I never actually liked The Price is Right much, but Larry's ok in my book.

Is that a flying pig?

2007-01-22T11:44:00.000+11:00

Shock! Horror! Hilary Clinton's running for president! No-one saw that one coming...

SOS

2007-01-18T16:52:00.000+11:00

Work is driving me crazy STOP Send help STOP arrrgghhhh...... STOP

5ives

2007-01-17T09:19:00.000+11:00

Five hip-hop pseudonyms I’ve considered for myself: MC Chalk (because I’m brittle and very white).

the Iraq War as Star Trek

2007-01-17T09:08:00.000+11:00

"There are Klingons in the White House! Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war!"

I want this guy as my representative.

Underpaid Americans and over-drugged Irish

2007-01-11T12:17:00.000+11:00

There's an article over at the BBC about the American minimum wage that's equally fascinating and horrific. Right now in the US the minimum wage is a US$5.15 an hour ($6.58 in Australian dollars). Right now I'm getting paid almost 4 times that, and while I realise I'm horrendously overpaid for what I do, I got far more than that when I was 16 and working in retail. The figure hasn't gone up in ten years in the States; the Democrats want to raise it up US$7.25 by 2009, but this will only make it $9.27 in Australian dollars, still far below what I was making in grade 10. The woman featured in the article, Gina Walter, does a job very similar to the one I had back then, but she has to eat off paper plates because she can't afford the water bill if she washed her dishes every night. I know there's a "working poor" in Australia as well, and that trying to live off our minimum wage is not exactly easy either, but I'm sure to women like Gina Walter what we get paid in this country would seem enormous.

Urgh. Enough of that depressing topic. Here's a weird story for you: apparently 100% of banknotes in Ireland have traces of cocaine on them. Make of that what you will!

Big Pictures

2007-01-11T11:45:00.000+11:00

There's a great article in the New Yorker by David Denby about the future of movies, and how different ways of showing films - whether it be on an enormous cinema screen, an ipod, or a tv - affects the way that we experience them. I found the observations about the differences between movies that have been shot in digital and those shot on film really interesting, particularly the ways in which making digital prints of old movies has really come a long way.

Quiz

2007-01-10T09:47:00.000+11:00

All the cool kids seem to be doing it (by which I mean Chris and Crip), so here are my results for the BBC Personality Quiz:

Apparently I'm a 'nurturer', which I'm not sure describes me all that well, but the explanation is pretty close I guess.

A moderate amount of complaining

2007-01-04T17:37:00.000+11:00

Oi. I'm kinda over being home; it's nice to begin with, being looked after and cooked for, and just watching tv for hours on end. But I'm used to living on my own now, and so after a week or so the entire exercise becomes one of endurance more than anything else. And let's just say my family's been having some 'issues' lately and leave it at that. All in all, I'll be glad to be back in Canberra on Sunday, even if I'm all alone because my housemate is stuck in Queensland with the dreaded pox!

(As an aside, I'd just like to publicly apologise if it was my case of shingles that gave you chickenpox, Nat - I swear it was an accident!)

But anyway, enough complaining. We went to Melbourne last week to go to the cricket, which was great, even though it was officially the most boring day of play in the entire test series (day two of the Boxing Day test). Also did some shopping and picked up some bargains, although the day was somewhat marred by my stupid neck being stupid again.

Damnit, I said enough complaining! How about some links instead:

'Oronte Churm', who writes Dispatches from an Adjunct Faculty over at McSweeney's, now has his own blog at Inside Higher Ed, The Education of Oronte Churm. It's great that you can now read his stuff on a slightly more regular basis!

A McSweeney's List: Poorly named game shows of the Middle Ages. "Family Feudalism".

Sex ID is a set of tests from the BBC that will tell you what sex your brain is. It would appear that my brain is actually more male than female; I think that's because I scored well on the spatial awareness sections, particularly when compared to the average female score.

Lifehacker's got a fantastic post about how to switch from Windows to a Mac, including how to deal with common problems with switching over with keyboard shortcuts. I doubt that I'll ever actually buy a Mac, but I do have to use them occasionally at uni, and the bizarre behaviour of the backspace and delete keys drives me crazy. But now I understand!

Wes Anderson (of The Life Aquatic fame) directed an American Express ad! The Martin Scorsese one is pretty funny, and the M. Night Shyamalan one is just plain weird. Unsurprisingly.

This is quite old, but this story about someone poking their elbow through a $40 million Picasso had me wincing for days.

And finally, I'm still addicted to Word Shoot. Can't. Stop. Playing.

2006 in cities

2007-01-01T13:10:00.000+11:00

Jason Kottke's posted his, so I thought I should do mine too, just like last year. So here's my 2006 in cities:

Launceston, Tasmania*
Bicheno, Tasmania
Canberra, ACT*
Young, NSW
Berrima, NSW
Jervis Bay, NSW
Eden, NSW
Lake's Entrance, Victoria
Piper's River, Tasmania
Melbourne, Victoria*

One less city than the previous year. There are some random NSW towns in there - the night in Young was for work, and the other ones are from the uber road trip in June. I flew a lot less than last year: only 15 separate flights, compared to 25 in 2005. I guess a trip to New Zealand really bumps up the figures a bit! I also didn't go home as much, so I guess that changed the numbers a bit as well.

A Christmas meme

2006-12-23T22:44:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has had (or is going to have, depending on your time zone) a wonderful day, whether you celebrate or not. It's been a great day in my neck of the woods - lots of good food and drink, and santa was good to me this year, which is always nice.

To celebrate the day, a Christmas meme, which I actually started a few days ago. It's rather long though, which is why it's only getting posted now!

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Signed a lease. Experienced a traction machine. Wrote a program in binary. Did a tax return on paper (stupid e-tax wouldn't work for me). Flew home for a funeral. Walked the long way home late at night in high-heels and a ball gown. Pretended to be singing in the Qantas choir whilst standing on a beach.

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't do New Years' resolutions, so no, I didn't keep them, and no, I won't make any for next year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yep - my cousin.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. I went to two funerals this year.

5. What countries did you visit?
Absolutely none! This is a terrible situation that I fully intend to rectify in 2007. How's that for a New Years' resolution? I resolve to leave the country sometime during the next year...

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
A neck that doesn't cause pain all the time. A dining table and chairs for the new house! Um... I don't think I really lacked that much this year!

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Finishing exams (finally!) on November 17 comes to mind immediately, but that's really not that huge. I hurt my neck the first week in September - I don't want to keep going on about it, but it has rather dominated the second half of the year for me!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm really proud of some of the work I did this year, particularly in some of my American Studies courses. I finally feel like I, well, 'get it'. I was reading over some of my old essays a few weeks ago (mostly because I'm masochistic - there's nothing like reading your writing from first year to make you feel like a complete and utter idiot), and saw that my history lecturer wrote almost exactly the same comment on two essays that I wrote in consecutive semesters. It's only now that I actually feel like I understand what he was on about!

9. What was your biggest failure?
I wanted to do more in one of my jobs, but time just got away from me.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Um, yes :) In January it was my back, February was dominated by tooth problems (which will finally be resolved in January 2007 when I have my final appointment with my specialist for a double root canal, oh joy), and the second half of the year was dominated by my stupid neck. I went to the physio 11 times between September and the beginning of December, which I think is quite an achievement. Also, shingles.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My shiny new laptop!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The new group of people I lived with at college! My fabulous friends. The American public, who did good in the mid-term elections.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
John Howard, for oh so many reasons. Ditto for George Bush. A couple of my IT lecturers, who continue to take teaching quality to new and unexplored heights of mediocrity. Some people that I work with/for.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Moving into a house for the first time is an excruciatingly expensive exercise. Also, the physio.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Moving into a house of my own! Some of my courses, as nerdy as that sounds. The U.S. mid-term elections, which I suspect sounds even nerdier.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
'Walk Away' by Kelly Clarkson.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Right now, probably poorer, but once I get paid on Thursday it'll hopefully be different!

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Travel.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Watching a little less tv probably would have been a good idea! Facebook has also been steadily consuming my life in recent months.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Well Christmas is nearly over, but here's how I spent the day: morning with the family, opening presents and eating mangoes (bit of a tradition). And then, for only the third time in my entire life, we had Christmas lunch somewhere other than at our house, namely at my uncle's house. It was good though - much food was eaten, many presents were opened, etc. Then it was home to crash on the couch, where I watched some O.C. with my brother (he is absolutely obsessed).

21. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?
I'm going down the coast to spend a few days at a friend's beach house. Should be good.

22. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Nope.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favourite TV program?
Well, if we're talking new programs, then I'd have to see Dr. Who. Close runner-up would have to be Heroes. As for ones that I've been watching on a regular basis, some of my favourites are still Veronica Mars, House, and How I Met Your Mother. Too much good tv, too little time!

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Not really - my hatred for John Howard increases steadily with each passing day, but I hated him last year too, so it's not as if anything has changed dramatically.

26. What was the best book you read?
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Absolutely incredible.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Vienna Teng. Also, Kelly Clarkson I guess.

28. What did you want and get?
A new shiny laptop!

29.What did you want and not get?
I honestly cannot think of anything major off the top of my head; more money with which to go travelling, I guess, but that's always true for me.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
The Prestige was incredible. Also notable: Good Night, and Good Luck and V for Vendetta.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
It was the big 2-1 this year, very exciting. Fitting for such a big event, my birthday celebrations went on for about two and a half months, which was fabulous. I had two parties; one in Tassie and one in Canberra, with about a month in between the two of them. And then, just when I thought it was all over, about a month later I got a present in the mail from Sandro's mum! Turning 21 is the best thing ever.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
See answer to question 29; this year, on the whole, was pretty damn satisfying!

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
'Personal fashion concept'?! Um, whatever was on sale at Target? :)

34. What kept you sane?
My friends. Without them I would have surely collapsed into a quivering mass of patheticness sometime around March.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
If possible, Hugh Jackman, George Clooney and Brad Pitt actually become more attractive as the years go on. Also, maybe a little oddly, Jon Stewart, but mostly because he's one of the funniest men ever.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I was absolutely furious when the federal government overturned the ACT's gay marriage legislation; even now, just thinking about it gets me incredibly riled up. The way GLBTI citizens are treated is one of the last vestiges of institutionalised discrimination in this country and around the world, and... well, yeah, as you can tell, the issue stirred me up a little! Also, John Howard's ridiculous citizenship test, which is stupid on so many levels, not least of which is it won't actually keep one single terrorist out of the country, or prevent events like the Crunulla riots.

37. Who did you miss?
Come back, Matt!

38. Who was the best new person you met?
The new people I lived with! Several other people come to mind, but I'm not going to name names.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
A life without chocolate, and/or friends like mine, is obviously not one worth living.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"American Dreamz/Dreams with a Zee"...

God, that took a while. Merry Christmas again, folks!

I am a typing game master

2006-12-22T00:21:00.000+11:00

Yeah baby!

Um, so I've kind of been playing a lot of Word Shoot lately, apparently so much that I've got myself in the top three high scores for today. Yes, my life is pretty sad...

Things might look a little different around here for a while...

2006-12-18T22:10:00.000+11:00

So! In the change over to blogger beta, I've also changed my template. It'll probably only be temporary - I like the old one a lot better - but I have to work out how to get the new features working in the old template, i.e. a list of labels down the side.

2006-12-17T23:57:00.000+11:00

Word Shoot is an incredibly addictive typing game, of all things. I can see this stupid thing eating up vast amounts of my time over the next few weeks...

Blogs, lectures, and mistakes

2006-12-15T14:42:00.000+11:00

At last! My blog(s) have finally become eligible to be switched over to blogger beta; it seems to have taken a while, probably because there are a few attached to my account, and this one at least is on the large side - this will be post number 566. But! Everything is now switched over, which is tops, although because I have 566-odd posts, it could take me a while to take advantage of all the features, namely labels.

In other random thoughts:

When did it become acceptable to wear jeans and a t-shirt to your graduation? The ceremonies have been going on for the last few days, and I've seen two guys so far who couldn't even be bothered to put on decent pants for the occasion, let alone a shirt. On a related topic, I would like to know when people suddenly decided that jeans were appropriate attire for funerals; I've been to two funerals this year, and at both there were guys wearing jeans. Kids these days, I don't know...

Just went to a public lecture by Professor Francis Fukuyama, which was interesting, if not particularly earth-shattering in its revalations. Basically he said that "state building is hard, and it takes a long time." Which was incredibly revealing.

Often the most entertaining/painful parts of these public lectures are the questions at the end, and more specifically the weirdos who ask them. When Sandro and I walked in, we looked around and immediately picked out the woman who we thought was most likely to ask the stupidest, most long-winded question. You know the ones; they're always prefaced by a 5-minute diatribe, masquerading as a 'reflection', on the questioner's personal beliefs, followed by a rambling question that has absolutely no bearing on the subject of the lecture, the research interests of the lecturer, or life in general. And lo and behold, the woman we had picked turned out to be the token loony in this audience. I have a personal theory that the greater the amount of felt that a person is wearing, the higher the probability that a stupid question is asked; the wearing of inappropriate hats is also a strong predictive factor. The lecture will be available for download on Monday from here, so if you missed out you too can experience the wonder of stupid questions asked by hat-wearing loonies.

And to finish up, a hilarious link of the day (via kottke.org): Regret the Error's annual round-up of media errors and corrections. I adore this one from the Chicago Tribune:

An editorial in Friday’s paper incorrectly stated that Florida Cresswell, a candidate for state representative in the 28th District, was convicted in 1999 of battery and stealing Tupperware. In fact he was convicted of stealing a battery from a van as well as Tupperware that was inside the van.

Or this one from the New York Times:

A film review on Wednesday about "Little Miss Sunshine" referred incorrectly to contestants in the fictional children’s beauty pageant of the title. The critic intended to compare the contestants to underage prostitutes, not to "underage fleshpots."

But I think my favourite has to be the one mentioned at the very beginning of the round-up, which was actually the winner in 2004:

It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission.

Classic.

Whining and reviews

2006-12-12T15:05:00.000+11:00

So! Been a while since my last post. I have no decent excuse, except that now I've moved out into the real world I don't have regular internet access, and also that over the last week and a half or so, my entire body has decided to rebel. Stupid body. First it was a bout of dizziness, then my idiotic neck decided to be idiotic again, and then to top it all off, I got shingles. Which is always fun. So yeah, my body sucks, but everything's slowly getting better, and I'm going home on Sunday to the wonderfully cool climes of Tasmania, which'll be tops.

In other news... movie reviews!

First off we have The Prestige, aka one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. I completely agree with everything Crip said in his review; this film is absolutely, wonderfully incredible, and if you don't like it you are pretty much dead to me.

On the flipside, we have Casino Royale, aka one of, if not the worst, movie of all time. I cannot comprehend how this film has got such good reviews! Daniel Craig obviously has real potential to be a decent James Bond, but he was damned from the very beginning in Casino Royale by the atrocious script, and a storyline that took over two hours to go absolutely nowhere in an extremely confusing and convoluted way. Urgh. Terrible, terrible movie.

In even other news, here's what I'm reading at the moment:

I started Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, and haven't got much further than the third chapter. I guess I admire his aim, to write 'the people' back into the history of the US, but I find his writing style incredibly annoying, not just because he seems to try to be as confrontational and controversial as possible. There's nothing wrong with controversial, but don't try to do it for it's own sake.

Much more readable is The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar, which I started yesterday. An incredible amount of research has obviously gone into this history of voting and suffrage in the US, and the result is an incredibly interesting, and very well-written, book.

I also read The Old Man and the Sea yesterday, by Earnest Hemmingway, mostly because I never had, and I wanted something to read over lunch. I'm not sure I could add anything to the volumes of praise that has been written about this book; sufficed to say that it was wonderful. It's only 100-odd pages, just read it yourself!

The real world is... hot?

2006-11-24T15:54:00.000+11:00

Hmmm, so it's been a while since my last update. Many many things have happened since then, including two exams, one change of address, and three afternoons spent waiting at new home for furniture deliveries! Yes, that's right, I have finally thrown off the security blanket that is residential college life, and have moved out into the real world. So far so good, although I'm quickly discovering that the real world is expensive, particularly when you're setting up a house for the first time. Who knew, for example, that beds cost so much?! I certainly didn't.

In other news, Canberra is hot, but then I think most people knew that. I'm staying up here for the whole summer (I'll only be in Tasmania over Christmas/New Year), and I'm not sure how I'm going to survive. At least the office where I'll be working has air-conditioning, as does the new house. So yay for climate-change-causing air-conditioning!

I'm still having trouble adjusting to the fact that the academic year is over; this year has simultaneously seemed to go forever, and for no time at all. Similarly, this semester has been both fantastic as well as absolutely hideous in places, mostly when my neck was being a bitch. But I did some fantastic courses this year (even my IT ones weren't that painful this semester!), and to say that I'm now rather passionate about studying American history is probably putting it rather mildly. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year; I've still got another year of coursework to do before honours, but on a point related to my new-found passion for American history, there are very few courses I'm actually interested in studying on offer next year. I have vague thoughts about possibly applying for an internship at the Smithsonian in the second half of next year, but we will see. I have to survive the deadly Canberra summer first!

Monday madness

2006-11-13T22:19:00.000+11:00

It's Monday, which means that it's Monday Madness time again!

1. From ch'i: If you could only read one blog every day - which one blog would be on your daily list?
It would have to be kottke.org - since giving up on boingboing a few months ago, it's the only website I really rely on for my daily hit of linky goodness! Although I'd find it hard to give up my daily dose of dooce as well...

2. From kat: What do you do to de-stress from a hectic day?
TV is good, usually some classic season one West Wing. That or sleeping; sleep is good!

3. From paxil princess: What is your favorite piece of clothing to wear in the winter?
I have a scarf that's red and white stripes on one side, and blue and white on the other, and it is one of my most favourite items of clothing of all time.

4. From sherle: Do you prefer discussing problems with a sibling, a parent, a significant other, a psychologist, or a total stranger?
Talking to total strangers can be quite therapeutic, but usually it's just a parent or friend for me.

5. From trista: How long have you been blogging?
According to my blogger profile, since May 2002, which is a rather scarily long period of time. I haven't been doing it constantly since then, though; I've had this particular blog for about three years now, but before that I kept another one to document my time in Canada.

6. From lisa e: Which side of the bed?
At the moment it's the left, but usually it's just whichever side is closest to the wall.

7. From elton: How often do you pig out when you eat?
Depends how you define pig out :) I do have a bit of a soft spot for chocolate...

8. From karen: Do you watch the space shuttle launches?
Nope.

9. From dawn: What's your favorite leisure-time activity?
See answer to question 2 - it might make me sound like a loser, but I absolutely adore television... but only the good stuff! I'm also a big fan of reading mysteries, but usually only those from the so-called 'golden era' of detective fiction.

10. From sherle: When is the last time you said, 'I love you' and to whom? What about hugs? Who is the last person you hugged?
Probably to my parents, no idea when. I hugged someone about 15 minutes ago, who was saying goodbye!

McSweeney's stuff

2006-11-11T11:29:00.000+11:00

Two McSweeney's Lists for your reading enjoyment:

Phrases on the Marquee at the Local Strip Club to Cater to a More Literate Crowd: "It's Ulysses to Resist Us."

Jokes Made by Robots, for Robots: "A rabbi, an Arab, a robot, and a Catholic priest walk into a bar. Only the robot exits."

There's a new Dispatch from Adjunct Faculty out too...

US Elections

2006-11-08T19:28:00.000+11:00

Democrats Take Control of House. Hell yes! This is the best news I've heard in a long time...

TV Quote of... this half of the year?

2006-11-06T22:22:00.000+11:00

Um, so it's possible that the last time I updated the 'TV Quote of the Week' was in July, so as Bron so helpfully reminded me, it's about time for a new one. I'm going back to the classics this time, with this beauty from the very first episode of The West Wing.

C.J.: Is there anything I can say except 'The President rode his bicycle into a tree.'?
Leo: He hopes never to do it again?
C.J.: Seriously, they're laughing pretty hard.
Leo: He rode his bicycle into a tree. C.J., what do you want me...'The President, while riding his bicycle on vacation in Jackson, came to a sudden arboreal stop'. What do you want from me?
C.J.: A little love, Leo.

Ah, old school season 1 West Wing, how we love you...

Climate change

2006-11-03T17:33:00.000+11:00

I've never even tried to pretend that I understand where exactly John Howard is coming from. My views on pretty much everything are so wildly divergent from the Liberal party that it's often hard for me to even work up feelings of surprise any more when he does something new and monumentally stupid. But I must say that his comments on climate change over the last few days have really stepped it up for me; gone to a whole new level of "what the hell?!" Take, for example, this comment about a 'new Kyoto' agreement:

"If everybody is in, I am prepared to lead Australia in. But I am not prepared to lead Australia into an agreement that is going to betray the interests of the working men and women of this country and destroy the natural advantage that providence gave us."

Huh?! First of all, could someone please explain to me what this 'natural advantage' is that 'providence gave us'? An incredibly dry and harsh environment? Terrible drought? Secondly, aren't you betraying the interests of 'working men and women' (why doesn't he just say battlers - that's obviously what he was thinking of) by not doing anything now? It's those men and women who are going to find it incredibly hard to deal with rising petrol and food prices.

When accused, quite rightly, of being out of touch with the thinking of the majority of Australia, the Liberal Party's reply was that Kim Beazley just wants to "please the latte set." But as Labor's environment spokesman said, there must be "a lot of Australians drinking cafe latte around Australia today, because 92 per cent of them say his Government is not doing enough on climate change."

This Saturday November 4 is the International Day of Action on Climate Change, and all around the country there will be Walks Against Warming. I'll be in an exam when the Canberra one is happening, but please believe me when I say I would sincerely much prefer to be doing the walk instead! So go along if you can; if you can't, make sure you put your name on GetUp's Climate Action Map. Maybe one day John Howard will realise just how out if it he really is.

Monday madness

2006-10-30T15:15:00.000+11:00

Monday madness time, this week with a question by me!

1. From bev: Small town or big city?
Medium-sized city. I love visiting big cities, but I'm not sure I could live in one. Likewise, I'm not sure I could live in a small town; I'd get bored easily.

2. From turtlemoonwave: Do you have a favorite childhood memory, and if so, would you share it?
Um, I have several favourite childhood memories, but I'm not sure which one to talk about... I have one brother and two cousins, and our ages matched almost exactly those of the Pensevie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. So we used to spend hours pretending we were in the book, acting out scenes from the BBC television series of the books. Good (albeit slightly nerdy!) times...

3. From cat: How do you calm down when something has really upset and/or angered you? Do you swallow it? Call a friend and rant? Go in the bathroom and cry? Punch a wall? Walk around muttering to yourself, complete with scary hand gestures?
I have been known to throw things - usually I manage not to hit anyone, although I have damaged a few walls in my time. Basically I do all of the things listed above, except maybe the 'swallow it' one; I'm not particularly good at just letting things go.

4. From dna princess: What attracts you to memes?
It's a low-impact way of updating my blog that doesn't require much actual thought!

5. From mads (that's me!!): How reliant are you on computers to get through your day?
Embarrassingly reliant. I guess I am an IT student, so I have a small excuse, but I get exceptionally twitchy if I'm away from a computer for a couple of days. I check my email a billion times in one day (it's usually the first thing I do in the morning), as well as my feeds in bloglines. I also couldn't do my job without computers, so I'm pretty reliant in that sense as well.

6. From tizzie: In a crisis, are you calm or do you panic?
I'm usually pretty calm, although maybe I'm just good at hiding my panic!

Professor Jones

2006-10-27T15:50:00.000+10:00

Back from yet another globetrotting adventure, Indiana Jones checks his mail and discovers that his bid for tenure has been denied: "Dr. Jones's behavior on campus has led not only to disciplinary action but also to concerns as to the state of his mental health. In addition to multiple instances of public drunkenness, Dr. Jones, on three separate occasions, has attempted to set fire to the herpetology wing of the biology department."

I love McSweeney's.

Presidential elections website

2006-10-25T19:44:00.000+10:00

Very quick update with some linky goodness before I absolutely must, without a doubt, start doing some work:

The Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections was recommended to me yesterday by one of my lecturers, although the recommendation was prefaced with the statement "the guy's obviously a bit of a nutter", a statement which was seconded by another lecturer today. Having had a look, this Dave Leip is clearly a little bit OCD, but in a good way, because his obsession has resulted in such an insanely useful website (if you're into U.S. elections...which I am!). The data goes back all the way to 1789, and the notes that accompany each year are really interesting and helpful. I had been wondering about the election of 1864 (how do you run an election during a Civil War?), and not only did this website answer my questions about that, I've learned quite a few other cool things too.

Well, cool for me anyway. I realise that this blog is quickly turning into a continual (one-sided) discussion about American history, but I'm enjoying writing about it, so I don't really care that much if people are not enjoying reading about it!

Monday madness

2006-10-23T22:50:00.000+10:00

After a two-week break because of craziness in real life, I'm finally going to do the Monday Madness this week!

1. From cassie: Dramas or comedies?
Pretty broad question. If I had to choose just one, I'd say dramas, but I prefer my comedies with a hint of drama, and vice versa.

2. From nutmegnine: Your neighbor has frequent noisy parties on nights before you need to get up early. Do you confront him directly, call the police, call your landlord, join in the debauchery, or seethe quietly and do nothing?
Confront him directly, but in a non-confrontational way!

3. From sherle: Are you more comfortable in big crowds or small groups?
Depends. If I know the people in the small group, I'm fine. But if it's a group of people I don't know, I'd say a big crowd - the largest group of people I've ever talked to was about three thousand, so speaking to crowds doesn't really phase me!

4. From zeno: Do you prefer Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox?
Firefox all the way; I've got the button on my sidebar to prove it!

5. From briar: They say you learn something new every day. What new thing did you learn today?
I learned lots of new things today, but most of them were about people I know, which I'm not going to repeat here. One thing I did just find out was that Botswana has had the highest growth in income per capita over the last fifty years or so of any country in the world, which I thought was pretty interesting...

Fourscore and seven years ago...

2006-10-23T10:16:00.000+10:00

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a powerpoint presentation. It's so funny because it's so tragically true. I've had to sit through more than my fair share of atrocious powerpoint presentations in IT management classes, and I've also got the shivers from just reading the text of the Gettysburg Address. I'll take Gettysburg over poorly worded, indecipherable slides any day.

(You can read the full-text of the Gettysburg address here if you want to refresh your memory about what an incredible presentation should be like.)

I'd like to thank...

2006-10-21T16:59:00.000+10:00

I have a rather strange obsession with the acknowledgements pages in non-fiction books. Usually they're just your standard list of helpful librarians, colleagues, and critics, with a heartfelt thank you to family members at the end. Which is, you know, fine. I still find them a rather fascinating insight into how a book gets written, and occasionally you'll come across some real gems. Like this story:

Writing the history of African America from outside, indeed from halfway around the world, has many pleasures, and not the least of them in recent years has been trying to explain to the immigration officials at LAX or SFO, hypervigilantly guarding the United States, exactly what it is that an historian on a research trip does. Shane White has been the recipient of much gratuitous advice at American airports about how to write history. One immigration official, on being told that the Australian academic was flying on to New York, barked back, "There's history out there," pointing in the general direction of downtown Los Angeles or conceivably New York in the far distance. "Go and do it!" Shane White still occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night wondering about that little exchange.

-- The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History Through Songs, Sermons, and Speech, by Shane White and Graham White, p.231.

Also in The Sounds of Slavery is this rather strange little thank-you:

In particular, we would like to thank...Stephen Garton, a fine golfing companion until he became dean.

I also quite liked this brief digression into a discussion of endnotes vs. footnotes:

Generations of Captivity grows out of generations of scholarship which have made the historiography of slavery one of unrivalled richness. I have acknowledged my debt to that long tradition - and the men and women who made it - in the footnotes, which for reasons that confound logic no longer reside at the foot of the page.

-- Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves, by Ira Berlin, p.363.

In older books, you'll often read quite effusive praise of the ladies (never men) in the university typing-pool who turned handwritten chapters into proper manuscripts. Here's an example:

Mrs. Anne Granger, Mrs. Janet Villastrigo, and Mrs. Rebecca Davis, who had the unenviable task of deciphering my script, cheerfully typed several drafts of the manuscript.

-- The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, by John W. Blassingame, p.ix.

Authors often use the acknowledgements section to thank those who read drafts of the book. Not usually very interesting, which is why I found the following intriguing, especially as Kenneth M. Stampp wrote one of the most influential books on slavery, The Peculiar Institution... well, at least until Fogel and Engerman wrote Time on the Cross, probably one of the most controversial books ever written on slavery, if not all of American history.

We wish particularly to acknowledge our debt to Kenneth M. Stampp, who provided us with forty-one single-spaced pages of commentary.

-- Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, p.267.

After Time on the Cross was published in 1974, Fogel went on to write Without Consent or Contract, published in 1989. In that book's acknowledgement section, there was this lengthy testimonial to a particular colleague:

Marilyn Coopersmith, the administrator for our slavery project from 1966 until the present, not only efficiently coordinated the many aspects of data collection and analysis, sometimes personally searching distant archives for useful data, but provided a drive and enthusiasm for the work that infected everybody associated with the project. Perhaps the best assessment of her contribution was the one made by Albert Fishlow in April 1973, when he and Robert Gallman spent a day providing me with their detailed criticisms of a draft of Time on the Cross. At the conclusion of our session, deeply appreciative of all that I had learned from their many points, I offered to supply them with copies of our computer tapes, adding that Engerman and I wanted to compete, not by hoarding the data, but by trying to be more thorough in the analysis of them. Fishlow cocked back his head for a moment and said: "Who are you trying to kid, Bob? You know that unless you also give us Marilyn Coopersmith it won't be a fair contest."

-- Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, Robert W. Fogel, p.418.

Marilyn Coopersmith got a mention in Robert Fogel's Nobel Prize biography (he won for Economics in 1993), which I guess is one of the ultimate acknowledgements possible.

So yeah, acknowledgements. Fascinating! All of these are just taken from books I read for my most recent essay, but I've seen some other fantastic ones as well. Anyone got some favourites of their own?

(Yes, this is a nerdy obsession to have. But you know what? I really don't care...)

Catch-up time

2006-10-21T16:44:00.000+10:00

Hmmm, been really crap with the regular posting, haven't I? The last couple of weeks have just been so unbelievably crazy that I haven't had time to even think about writing anything. But! I'm taking today off to get my life in order, and because, well, I'm still not feeling 100% after a rather big night last night...

So in order to catch up, here are things in the life of me recently:

My neck is a lot better, finally. I had my last physio appointment on Monday, which I'm really happy about: the new physio I was seeing had a love of the traction machine, a love which I definitely did not share. I still get a bit stiff at the end of the day, particularly if I've been sitting at a desk for a long time, but apart from that it's all good.
My brother came to visit on Tuesday - he was only in Canberra for about 16 hours all up, but it was really great to see him.
We've started looking at houses for next year! Very exciting!
I bought a CD on Wednesday - 'Warm Strangers' by Vienna Teng. Really good stuff.
I have an honours supervisor (I think) for 2008! I know it's a little early, but there were leave issues involved, so I'm glad that I was able to talk to the lecturer in question ahead of time. All I have to do now I guess is survive one more year of coursework...
My essay on American slavery was finally finished on Thursday. It was a close thing; that essay was almost the death of me, in several different ways. I also had two other assignments due this week, so I'm not operating on an enormous amount of sleep at the moment. I have big plans to catch up this weekend.
My parents are in Italy at the moment. This is so very very unfair.

Ok, that should do for now. I've got a few other things I want to write about, so possibly expect a few more posts today!

Down with comic sans

2006-10-14T07:45:00.000+10:00

America's Most Fonted: The 7 Worst Fonts. God, yes. Comic Sans is, naturally, in the number one position. I hate that font with the heat of a super nova, and whenever I see it used by someone, no matter what the situation, my level of respect drops by a factor of, say, 10 trillion. I love the description of Comic Sans as the "AOL of fonts"; so true, so true. Also check out the comments - for some reason all the crazies on the internets decided to hang out for a while, with hilarity ensuing.

Ban Comic Sans is also pretty funny - "putting the sans in comic sans".

So I like a disgusting joke now and then...

2006-10-08T13:15:00.000+10:00

...as long as it has an edge of history nerd.

I've been laughing at this on and off all week, so I thought I'd share it with the world. This appeared in the satire section of Woroni, the ANU's student newspaper, under the heading "Build Your Vocab."

Boston tea-bagging, n., A sexual act, a variation on the well-known act of tea-bagging. One sneaks up on one's sleeping lover, carefully drops one's balls into the sleeping lover's mouth, and then screams, "No taxation without representation!"

I know as a joke it's pretty immature and disgusting, but I've been desperately trying to think of a way to casually drop this into one of my American history essays for days now. So far no success, but I will persevere...

Ok, back to work. Urgh.

Things in the life of me

2006-10-05T19:10:00.000+10:00

Neck still sore, but it is getting better. I went back to the physio today, which will make that the second time this week, and the ninth time this year. And I'm going again on Monday. My normal physio is on holiday at the moment, and I swear I paid for at least a few nights accommodation of his trip all on my own. Because he's away, it does mean that I'm currently seeing another guy, who I'm not terribly crazy about, and not just because he put me in this traction machine today. Not a particularly comfortable experience, but I survived.

So yeah, not a lot of work has been done this week (read: none), so I'm starting to freak out just a little about how I'm going to get everything done before exams, especially considering that I've only been on the computer for about half an hour this evening, and already I can feel the start of that wearily familiar creeping stiffness. Thank god for my absolutely fabulous politics lecturer, who has pretty much given me an indefinite extension on my essay, which was due on Tuesday. Now I just have to somehow find a way of doing a 2,500 word history essay, an enormous IT assignment, and a group-work project management assignment without once again collapsing in a heap of very undignified pain. *Sigh* I guess it'll get done... somehow....

But! It's not all doom and gloom in my neck (ha!) of the woods. I just found out that Natalie and I have just secured the third and final housemate of the House of Fun (tm) for next year, which is tops. Now we just need to find a house, which I'm sure will be the easiest part of the entire enterprise.

How about some linky goodness?

Here's a McSweeney's List for all the nerds out there: St. James Parish Sewing Club Members Whose First Names Sound Like Programming Languages - "Fortrannah."

Recently I've been enjoying Ferule & Fescue.

Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme (kinda) live-blogged the premiere of their new show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Some more links for the nerds: Google has launched Google Code Search, but from my cursory examination, I still think codefetch is one of the greatest things ever invented if you want to search for code examples. (Pretty cool aside: my previous comments about codefetch are still up on the codefetch blog, right below a testimonial from Matt Haughey of metafilter fame.)

Jason Kottke's got a list of books on the Civil Rights movement to go along with the documentary Eyes on the Prize which I mentioned earlier this week. I would heartily second Taylor Branch's trilogy on America in the King Years, an incredile set of books, as well as Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home. I'd also suggest An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America by Andrew Young, and Allen Matusow's The Unraveling of America, which although isn't just about Civil Rights, has several good chapters on the topic (I've mentioned the book twice before, here and here).

Alrighty. That should do for tonight - Natalie's coming up for tea, and there is not a single clean mug in my entire room.

Finally, Monday Madness

2006-10-05T18:54:00.000+10:00

Time to catch up on some stuff; first off, the Monday Madness questions!

1. From amanda f:
What do you do when somebody complements you?
a. Smile and say Thanks
b. Ignore it and change the subject
c. Compliment them back
d. Turn red in embarrassment at the attention and look around to see other people's reaction
e. Take it as your due!
Probably a bit of a through d; I'm not particularly good at receiving compliments.

2. From shelly:
What color are your eyes?
Browny green - basically a dirty marsh colour. Attractive, huh? :)

3. From kia:
What do you like most about yourself?
This is a pretty tricky question. I think I possess a fair amount of plain ol' commonsense, if that counts as a 'special' characteristic. I'd say I'm pretty good at keeping calm and sensible in a 'crisis'... and I don't mind being tall! :)

4. From julie:
How do you spend Christmas?
With family at our place - in my 21 years on this earth, I've only spent two christmases away from my house. My family is not religious at all, so the day basically involves a lot of presents, a lot of food, and usually a lot of alcohol. Oh, and mangoes for breakfast, a huge indulgence in Tasmania when they're usually $2 each.

5. From wide imagination:
When do you normally blog? Day or night?
Both.

6. From rach:
What song can you relate to your personal life? Share a line or two of that song.
I can't think of one of the top of my head that relates to my personal life right now, mostly because I don't seem to have a song that has the word 'neck' in the title. Different songs mean different things to me at different times - 'London Still' by The Waifs and 'Better be Home Soon' by Crowded House were on pretty frequent rotation when I was in Canada, mostly I think because I kinda missed Aussie accents, and you can't get much more Aussie than that first line of London Still "Wonder if you can pick up my/accent on the phaaaaane?" Classic.

7. From sherle:
What is your favorite color for a sleeping environment?
No particular preference - my walls at home in Tasmania are blue, and the ones up here are white/dingy concrete. So I guess clean walls would be nice, but I have no particular likes or dislikes beyond that!

Eyes on the Prize

2006-10-03T17:38:00.000+10:00

PBS in the US is currently showing the 14-hour documentary Eyes on the Prize, a history of the American civil rights movement. I tried desperately to find a copy of this earlier in the year, to no avail, so I'm insanely jealous of those people in the States who can watch it over the next few weeks. The transcripts are available on the website, which I guess is the next best thing, but I'd still love to see the actual thing.

I have more to talk about (including this week's Monday Madness questions), but I re-injured my neck yesterday, so writing this entry has pretty much used up all the time I can currently spend using a keyboard without collapsing in pain. Again. To say that I'm sick of this could possibly be the biggest understatement of the millennium.

The Last Lecture

2006-09-28T17:59:00.001+10:00

Quick note for all those ANU students out there: tomorrow is the last day to nominate someone for the 2006 'Last Lecture'. There are details about the event and process here, and you can find the nomination form here. The Last Lecture is one of the events to come out of the office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor for University Community**; you might have seen the rather bizarre looking posters around, with a picture of a, frankly rather intimidating, woman on an orange background. It's a rather random concept, but I quite like the idea. And there's free refreshments involved, so it can't be all that bad...

So! Go ahead and nominate your favourite lecturer, and then go back on Tuesday 10 October and vote for them. It'll be fun!

** I know it's pretty glaringly obvious that I adore my university, but can I just have a mini-rave about how incredible it is that we have an entire senior position devoted entirely to developing a better university community? Sure we have the standard people in charge of research and education and development, but community?! That's pretty wonderful right there.

iPod pose!

2006-09-27T09:46:00.000+10:00

Attack of the iPod People - an insanely detailed tutorial on how to turn your ordinary photos into fabulous iPod ads, all with the help of photoshop. Now I don't own a copy of photoshop, but if any of you do and want to have a go, I have about a million photos from the last few years that are prime candidates for iPodification!

My desk

2006-09-26T10:25:00.000+10:00

Desk
Originally uploaded by Mads.

I've been making a conscious effort in the last few weeks to improve my posture and working environment, so that I don't end up with excruciating neck pain again any time soon. Which is why I now have this rather inelegant set-up on my desk now. Finally my IT textbooks have a use - propping up my laptop and document holder!

On the left we have Java Software Solutions and Fundamentals of Database Systems, and underneath the laptop, from top to bottom, we have Discrete Mathematics with Applications, Information Technology for Management, and Data Structurs and Software Development in an Object-Oriented Domain, all books that I thought I would never use again. Turns out they're all excellent substitutes for bricks.

Monday meme!

2006-09-25T17:39:00.000+10:00

Monday madness...

1. From jstar: Holiday in Europe or Asia?
Europe, definitely.

2. From sherle: How do you try to change a behavior pattern you don't like about yourself... whether it's chewing fingernails, overeating, smoking, or picking your nose?
I fail dismally, as evidenced by my disgusting habit of cracking my knuckles.

3. From tricia: Have you ever successfully completed a Sudoku puzzle?
I am completely and utterly addicted to sudoku. Most days I'll do three of them at sudoku.com.au, and then on the weekend I'll do the 'samurai sudoku' in the Good Weekend magazine (5 puzzles combined into one monster sudoku!).

4. From caylynn: What website do you visit the most often?
Bloglines - I'm not entirely sure I could live without it anymore. But if we're talking visiting a website for actual content, it would probaly be ABC News or McSweeney's.

5. From michael morgan: What was your favorite thing about high school or college?
Hmmm, good question. My favourite thing about high school was probably all the extra stuff I did, like debating and Tournament of Minds. In comparison to university (or 'college') though, high school sucked. I absolutely love being at uni...

O Canada

2006-09-22T21:03:00.000+10:00

In lieu of actual content, another of my favourite photos. I took this one in Jasper, Alberta when I was there in 2003. I think this photo could only be more Canadian if there was a Mountie and a moose in there...

Excitement

2006-09-21T19:33:00.000+10:00

Reasons why I am excited:

This week is almost over! Hooray! And from here on, it's all down-hill: the worst is over.
Matt sent me chocolate! In the mail! Number one guaranteed way to make me happy is to send me a package, but to make it a package of chocolate? Sheer genius.
'Brothers in Arms' by Dire Straits just started playing on my computer. Such a good song, and always makes me think of the West Wing episode Two Cathedrals, one of the greatest hours of television ever made.
While getting the link for that previous point, I discovered that the people behind the fabulous West Wing continuity guide and the House, M.D. guide are also putting together a Studio 60 guide! Hooray for excellent tv guides!
My physiotherapist has set me free - I don't have any more appointments lined up, so I'm getting there. When I went yesterday he kept on asking for local tips on what to see and do when he goes on holiday to Tasmania next week. Of course, he would always want me to answer just when he was prodding that particularly sensitive part just above my shoulder-blade... but he's a good physio, so I'll forgive him. I guess.
Did I mention that this week is almost over?!

Reasons I am not excited:

For some reason I didn't get paid this week. I want my $86.24, damnit!
Too. Much. Work. Bleurghgghghghhhh....

But I have a package of chocolate, so for some reason the whole world just looks a little bit brighter... :)

Monday madness time... on a Tuesday

2006-09-19T12:53:00.000+10:00

This week's Monday Madness questions went up a little late, so that's why you're getting my answers on a Tuesday...

1. How do you eat an oreo cookie?
I can't actually remember the last time I ate an oreo cookie. But I think it depends on my mood at the time as to whether I just bite in, or separate the biscuits...

2. How long does it take you to eat lunch?
Depends on who I'm eating lunch with! I have been known to be at lunch for a couple of hours, but usually it's about 30 minutes.

3. Caffeine or decaf?
Caffeine. I agree with Chris - otherwise, what's the point?

4. Chicken or beef?
Beef.

5. Pen or pencil?
I go through phases - I used pencil last term, but now I'm back to pen again. I always use pencils to take notes when I'm doing reading, though.

6. Autumn or spring?
Autumn.

7. Baseball or basketball?
Basketball. I played for a couple of years when I was in high school, and really enjoyed it. Also, I don't have the hand/eye coordination to play baseball!

8. 'Survivor' or 'The Amazing Race?'
The Amazing Race, but mostly for the travel porn. I have been known to watch Survivor in my time: my brother and I were obsessed with the one in Australia.

9. Come up with one question I can ask our Monday Madness participants in the weeks to come.
How reliant are you on computers to get through your day?

Ten things

2006-09-18T21:48:00.000+10:00

Some stuff.

Neck and shoulder problems persist, although mostly it's just stiffness. Which occasionally develops into aching. Which then develops into pain, usually at the end of the day. Bloody hell I'm sick of this!
I'm obsessed by the song 'Two Hands' by Ani DiFranco.
Work is crazy busy this week. Not happy.
Can this semester just be over already?
What's with IT students who don't know how to reference stuff? Third year IT students. I've had to explain the concept of a reference twice in the last two weeks, as well as a 10 minute lecture on why wikipedia is not an appropriate academic source. Boggles the mind.
I bought new shoes last week. This is so unheard of I think it needs to be immortalised on my blog.
I quite liked this McSweeney's List: HAL's Comments While Trapped on a Desert Island, and Your Name Is Dave - "I've got the conch, Dave."
It's supposed to be 26 degrees tomorrow in Canberra. What the hell is up with that?! I can't handle this heat!
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Yeah, as you might have guessed, I'm not all that enthusiastic about this week. Any way we can just cancel it and move on? Bleurgh.

Two weeks in the life of me

2006-09-14T19:31:00.000+10:00

So I'm mostly over my whiny and pathetic phase (which I briefly mentioned here). Sufficed to say that I've had a pretty crappy last few weeks, due primarily to annoyingly persistent, and occasionally excruciating, neck and shoulder pain. It started two weeks ago, and while it is a lot better I'm still not entirely 100%, and so my weeks have been filled with frequent visits to the physio, and not a lot of work because I can't use a computer for much longer than 45 minutes at a time.

So yeah, that's been kind of sucky, especially the not being able to work part: I had planned to do quite a bit of reading and research for essays in these two weeks of break, and now I'm woefully behind. Hopefully I'll be able to get extensions (I have documentation etc.) but it's just an enormous bother.

But! Not everything has been bad in the life of me recently. Bron came to visit on Saturday afternoon, and even if it wasn't for very long, and the reasons for her visit to Canberra weren't fantastic, it was tops to see her. I watched all of season two of The House of Elliot last week, which was fabulous - that program still ranks in my top five TV shows of all time. I finally got my camera cable in the mail today (and my mother put chocolate in the package as well!), so I've finally been able to upload all the photos I've taken this term. I had a very nice dinner with my uncle last night, who was up in Canberra for meetings. And I got my mobile phone back in one piece, after accidentally leaving it on the bus last night - someone handed it in to lost property in Belconnen! Rock on Canberra and its civic-minded citizens.

So life isn't all bad. But I'll be extremely happy when I'm completely over this neck/shoulder thing and can actually get down to doing some real work...

Monday meme!

2006-09-11T15:53:00.000+10:00

Monday madness time!

1. How long have you been blogging?
According to my blogger profile, I've been 'on blogger' since May 2002. I think I had a journal somewhere else before then, but not for very long, or very seriously. So I guess mid-2002, but I only really started blogging regularly when I went to Canada.

2. How many times have you taken a break from blogging?
I had a break for a while after I got back from Canada in September 2003, but this blog has been going since November of that year, so the break didn't last for very long!

3. How long is the longest you've gone, so far, without posting on your blog?
I was pretty atrocious about posting regularly to begin with on this blog - I guess a couple of months was the longest (I don't have the energy or motivation to check properly!).

4. How many fellow bloggers do you keep in touch with, through your blogs, on a regular basis?
Most of the bloggers I keep in touch with I actually know in real life. I've had email with a few other people, but not many.

5. Have you ever met, in person, a blogger on your blogroll?
See answer to question 4 - most of them I see every day :)

6. How often do you update/change the 'extra' stuff on your blog?
Well, my 'TV quote of the week' should really be called 'TV quote of the irregular time period, usually bordering on a month'. I occasionally tinker with the template, but haven't made a major change for a while now.

7. Do you think you'll be blogging for years to come?
I think so - I do enjoy it, even if no-one else enjoys reading it!

The POWER of the earth!

2006-09-09T22:44:00.000+10:00

I wrote a long ranty, whiny post on Friday, but didn't hit the publish button straight away because I'm not a fan of reading other people's long ranty, whiny posts, so why should I subject other people to them?

So while I still make up my mind as to whether the world really needs to hear about how crap my week was, have a photo instead. I took this a couple of years ago (on the Kitsch tour of Tassie!), at the Cataract Gorge in Launceston. If you're from Tasmania you'll appreciate the whole floody-ness of it, and if you're not, well just appreciate the POWER OF THE EARTH that is this place, only 15 minutes walk from the centre of Launceston. You can get an idea of what the river is supposed to look like at the Gorge website.

Newspaper raptures

2006-09-08T10:35:00.000+10:00

Newspapers often contain the best material for writing about history, but finding that material can be extremely difficult, particularly if you want anything from before, say, 1950. Which is why I am currently in raptures of excitement about Google News Archive.

Oh. My. God. Full-text search of newspapers! Newspapers dating back to the early 1800s! You have to pay to read a lot of the early stuff, but that's not such a huge issue, because once you've actually found an article there are always other (free) ways to read it, i.e. the in the newspaper reading room at the National Library. Anyone who has ever tried to use the handwritten index for the early years of the New York Times can appreciate how absolutely fabulous this website will be. The timeline feature is also pretty amazing - have a look, for example, at the evolving discussion about Bretton Woods.

So yeah, Google News Archive? Pretty darn exciting.

[Found via the ever wonderful Lifehacker - what exactly did we all do before that website existed?]

Naturam Primum Cognoscere Rerum

2006-09-06T20:40:00.000+10:00

I'm finding the wikipedia list of university mottos quite fascinating. Some of them are lovely: I'm particularly fond of "From Mystery Without a Dawn to Triangles of Light" from the Autonomous University of Campeche in Mexico, and the University of Chicago's "Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched". Even the ANU's is quite nice - "First, to know the nature of things."

Some, however, are just stupid. Case in point: The University of Canberra, with "New Intelligence." I've seen that on bus billboards before, but I just thought it was a marketing slogan, not the actual university motto. Stupid UC.

And then some are plain weird. I think my favourite is Saarland University in Germany, which has as its motto, "Eating well is essential." Huh?

Meme time

2006-09-04T13:42:00.000+10:00

Monday madness!

1. Which holidays (if any) do you consider more as a day off from work, than anything else?
Easter - has absolutely no religious significance for me, so it just ends up being a very nice long weekend.

2. Which 3 holidays are most celebrated in your family?
Um... my family is not religious at all, but we do like us some Christmas dinner. Apart from that, we don't really 'celebrate' any particular holidays. We do tend to do birthdays well.

3. Do you have an organized filing system at home?
I have an expanding file-folder under my desk for reference stuff, and old essays and notes etc. For each of my current subjects I have a manilla folder, as well as a few others for various other things I'm working on. There's also a pile on my desk which I could, I suppose, call an inbox, but which is really a heap of stuff that I don't know what to do with.

4. Do you clip coupons for groceries? If so, do you remember to use them? If not, why?
I'll snag the odd pizza-discount coupon off the back of a supermarket receipts, but not really apart from that. Usually they sit in my purse for months until I have a clean-out and toss them all.

5. How many magazines do you subscribe to?
I've had a subscription to the fantastic Empire movie magazine for a few years, and was a regular reader for a while before that. My family has subscriptions to National Geographic, and Delicious magazine, which I read when I'm home.

6. Do you play any computer games on a regular basis? If so, which is your favorite, and why?
I play games quite a bit when I'm home - last holidays it was Sim City, but before that it's been The Sims, and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, which is a great game. I've been playing computer games for pretty much as long as I can remember, so don't ask me to name a favourite, it's just too hard! :)

7. Have you watched any movies worth recommending, lately?
I saw Proof a couple of weeks ago, and that was pretty good, if not a little long. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is great fun, as long as you don't think too much about whether the whole thing is plausible. Do not go and see The Squid and the Whale unless you want to be mightily disturbed.

Music meme!

2006-09-04T09:53:00.000+10:00

I have rants to make, but not enough energy to make them... so a music meme instead!

Total number of tracks: 1422

Sort by song title:
-First Song: 'Deed I Do - Diana Krall
-Last Song: Zebra - John Butler Trio

Sort by time:
-Shortest Song: Bazmark Fanfare - Baz Lurhmann
-Longest Song: I actually have a couple of radio play kind of things on my computer which go for half an hour, but I'm not going to count those, because, well, they're not songs. Which means that I'll also not count Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, which is third longest. So! The longest song I have is Eskimo, by Damien Rice, at a shocking 15:59 minutes! It's actually playing right now (freaky coincidence!), and I think most of it is actually silence before a secret track...

Sort by album:
-First Song: Bella's Birthday Cake - Five for Fighting (album = ...Message for Albert)
-Last Song: Long Day, Matchbox 20 (album = Yourself or Someone Like You)

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
The program I use to play music doesn't handle 'most played songs' very well, so here's a vague approximation:
At Last - Etta James
Cold Water - Damien Rice
I'm Not Worried at All - Moby
Stuff and Nonsense - Missy Higgins
Homecoming (Walter's Song) - Vienna Teng
I Hear the Bells - Mike Doughty
Walk Away - Kelly Clarkson (w00t for Kelly Clarkson!)
All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks (yes, I like the Dixie Chicks. You got a problem with that? This song is especially fabulous, with it's bitter twisted hatred...)
Soon Love Soon - Vienna Teng (my new music obsession)

Search ....
"sex", how many songs come up? 6
"love", how many songs come up? 95
"you", how many songs come up? 225
"death", how many songs come up? 0!
"hate", how many songs come up? 3 (but somehow 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' comes up with that search, so I doubt the accuracy of these results!)
"wish" how many songs come up? 7

New music

2006-08-30T18:47:00.000+10:00

I have 1400-odd songs on my computer, but only listen to a tiny proportion of them on a regular basis. So last week I put my entire collection on shuffle, and have been slowly but steadily working through it, listening to all the music I have.

Where did some of this stuff come from!?! Most of the songs I can vaguely work out how I came to possess them, but others... for example, the song 'I found a reason' by Cat Power just came on. I'm fairly sure I've never heard of Cat Power before, and I've certainly never heard this song before (which is rather fabulous, by the way). I truly have absolutely no idea.

But I guess that's a good thing about doing this - discovering new music, right here on my computer! Now if I could only work out what the hell is wrong with my ipod, I could listen to this new fabulous music wherever I am...

(PS: As you may have been able to gather by the sharp increase in posting-frequency lately, I have some IT assignments that are due soon. Nothing brings on procrastinatory posting like IT assignments!)

Geotaggy goodness

2006-08-30T15:14:00.000+10:00

Yesterday Flickr launched a brand new feature that allows users to geotag their photos with location information, that then appears on maps for everyone to see. It's hard to explain, but it's a very cool feature - I just had a play around with it, and it's resally easy to use as well, like all of flickr. There's a great post on the Flickr blog today about the project one day later, which contains the jaw-dropping fact that over a million photos are added to the site every day. That's more than 228,000,000 photos and half a billion tags, all of which are almost instantaneously searchable. That's some pretty impressive stuff.

The maps for Australia aren't all that good at the moment, and flickr acknowledges that they've still got a way to go where the world outside of the US is concerned. But it's still an incredible feature, and it looks like it will only get better as time goes on. So go and have a play, and make sure you geotag all your photos - it'll only take a couple of minutes!

My new favourite blog

2006-08-29T20:22:00.000+10:00

Sick of boing boing? Then try Overheard in New York instead, my new favourite blog. I'm sure it's funnier if you're actually from NY, but it's still pretty bloody hilarious if you're not.

Monday meme time

2006-08-28T16:43:00.000+10:00

Monday madness!

1. Do you do dishes by hand or do you use a dishwasher?
By hand here at college, because all I have to wash is a mug now and then. But we have a dishwasher at home.

2. How many people have your cell phone number?
I have absolutely no idea. My mobile number is the only phone number in my email signature for work, so I get quite a few calls because of that. I've had this number for quite a while now, and before that my brother had it - so let's say everyone in Launceston between the ages of 12 and 35!

3. Do you shower in the morning or at night?
In the morning.

4. Do you ever have a song 'stuck' in your head?
God yes. I've been singing 'Michelle' by The Beatles since Friday. That's starting to get a little annoying...

5. Do you pay your bills when they arrive, or do you wait until closer to the due date to pay them?
Well I don't actually have that many bills to pay, but I guess I wait a bit before I pay the ones I do get.

6. Are you obsessive about anything in particular?
Err...

I think a better question is "Are you not obsessive about anything in particular?" I'm rather well-known for my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, particularly my habit of counting my steps, and my deep dislike of rooms that don't have walls on the square. I can't stand cupboard doors being left open, or pictures hanging on the wall to be crooked. I'm rather anally retentive about the organisation of files on my computer, and my bookshelves at home are organised according to genre, and then size.

So yes. Obsessive could be my middle name, I guess. On a broader scale, I'm also obsessed with The West Wing, Sherlock Holmes, the books of Laurie R. King, and visiting museums.

7. What one thing would you say you have a zero tolerance for?
See above - irregular shaped rooms, open cupboard doors, crooked pictures...

But once again, on a broader scale: I have zero tolerance for apathy. I have no problem with people having strong opinions on some topic or other, but I cannot stand who can't work up enough energy to even work out how they feel about a particular issue. I'm not looking for passionate commitment to every hot topic, but something more than a pathetic little shoulder shrug would be nice!

Library smut and boing boing

2006-08-27T09:13:00.000+10:00

Hot Library Smut: photos from the absolutely beautiful book Libraries by Candida Höfer, which Sandro actually borrowed a few months ago. Some of the photos are incredible.

On a slightly related note: I found the link for that site on kottke.org, like most of the interesting things I look at on the net these days. Earlier this week I unsubscribed from the boing boing feed in my bloglines account, and have not missed one tiny little bit at all. I've been an avid and devoted reader of boingboing for a long time, but there's only so many one-sided fanatical rants about copyright, airport security, and sex toys that I can stand (I only had to scan down the current front page to find all those posts - and there were several I could have chosen from for each 'category'). I usually enjoy Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz's stuff, but their posts are always lost in amongst all the boring crap from Cory Doctrow and Xeni Jardin. I'll follow 3 or 4 of Jason Kottke's links a day, but probably only 2 boing boing links a week, because, well, they're crap. So good riddance, boing boing, and long live kottke.org!

Awesome

2006-08-23T10:46:00.000+10:00

Joss Whedon, in response to this rather hilarious list by screenwriter James Gunn, comes up with his own list of the 25 most awesome tv characters of all time. Top stuff, and not only because Whedon reveals his Josh and Donna West Wing love:

5) Josh Lyman from the West Wing. Another 'throw a stone, hit a favorite', but Josh has a thing. That thing is called Donna.

He also nominates Logan from Veronica Mars, because he's "Smirking his way into TV history." Classic!

In a later post, James Gunn responds to questions about his own list, including, "Why are all the characters from the last few years?" I thought his answer was dead-right:

That's an easier question to answer: TV is better now than it ever has been before. Film was better in the '70's, but TV is at its prime right now (or at least starting with Larry Sanders and Buffy), and with HBO and great creators like Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, Ricky Gervais, and so forth, you have shows that have characters with a depth that wasn't previously possible. And if you're on Deadwood you can say "cunt." That always helps.

I can't stand Deadwood, so I don't really care that you can say "cunt" on tv now, but everything else he says is absolutely and utterly correct.

Office muscle memory

2006-08-23T10:07:00.000+10:00

Jensen Harris (of the Office User Interface Blog) has a new post up on the ergonomics of GUI design. I find this kind of stuff infinitely fascinating, things like how the four corners of a desktop are "magic corners" because it's a lot easier to quickly direct your pointer to a corner than to a point some distance from the edge of the screen. There's also a fascinating section on how the Start button was improved between Windows 95 and Windows XP, simply be removing a one-pixel wide banner of 'dead space'.

I've been using the Office 2007 beta for about two months now, and so far I like what I see, particularly in Word, which I use most. The lack of drop-down menus, and the new 'Ribbon' do take a bit of getting used to, but mostly because I don't automatically know where stuff is. But the interface is really intuitive, and all the keyboard shortcuts from Office 2003 work in 2007 as well, so the learning curve is not that steep at all. I don't think I've ever used Styles in Word 2003, but the support for them in 2007 is a lot better, and I've been finding them really useful - and the available styles actually look quite good too.

I have found it interesting how some Word keyboard shortcuts are programmed so deeply into my muscle memory that I now use them completely without thought. In my version of Word 2003, I had a word-count toolbar, and all I had to type was ALT+C to get the updated word count. When you're writing an arts essay to a word limit, the current number of words becomes rather important. So over time, I realised that after each sentence that I typed, I would first go CTRL+S to save, and then straight after ALT+C to get an updated word count. In Word 2007 there's a constantly updating word count in the bottom left-hand corner, so there's no more need to press ALT+C or open another dialog box to get the number of words. But I still find myself pressing the shortcut keys, every time after I save. Likewise, I memorised the keystroke combination required to insert a footnote in Word 2003 (ALT+I+N+N+Enter) a long time ago, and while I'm sure there's an easier way to do it in 2007, I still use that rather long and complicated 'shortcut', because it would seem it's programmed extremely deeply in my subconscious.

So yeah, Word 2007 = good: don't expect to instantaneously be as efficient as you were with 2003, but don't expect to spend months and months re-learning how to do everything, either.

Referencing

2006-08-21T14:13:00.000+10:00

This is mostly just for me, but The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing has an exhaustive page detailing how to reference just about everything. I was looking for info on how you footnote a quote from the US Constitution, and found not just that, but a whole lot of other useful stuff. Well worth a look if you use the Chicago style of referencing for your essays, and you don't own a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style!

Lists, lists, and more lists

2006-08-15T22:12:00.000+10:00

McSweeney's Lists!

Small Businesses Poorly Named After Classic Literature: "The Sun Also Rises Tanning Salon."
Alternatives, Should You Not Like Piña Coladas and Getting Caught in the Rain: "Red wine and bitterly fighting with depression."
Some of Dan Brown's Works in Progress: "The Security Code: Jesus breaks into some houses; takes nothing, leaves love and understanding."
Strange Compliments I've Received Because I'm Not Very Attractive: "The whites of your eyes are really white."
Lost Causes: "Sea monkeys."

Merlin Mann, of 43 Folders fame, also does a nice line in lists over at his site 5ives. Here's a selection of recent hilarious posts:

Five things I’ll bet can be hard for pirates: "finding one-legged pants that won’t make your hips look too broad."
Five markings I think I’d enjoy having on my grave: "Largely Tolerated by Friends."
Five injustices you bravely suffer: "fucking Eggers never responded to your email."
(For Sandro) Five things, besides lying, that Shakira’s hips don’t do: "long division."
Five terrible fake Spears family parenting lapses: "Kevin repeatedly leaves baby in ashtray at check cashing store."

Homegrown meme

2006-08-15T10:25:00.000+10:00

Crip made up his own meme! And being the meme-addict that I am, I of course had to do it:

1. What can't you travel without? Well I guess there's the obvious stuff like money and ID, but I'm not sure that's quite the kind of answer required here. As you can probably tell by my recent upset, I find it hard to travel anywhere without my diary. One thing I have started travelling with frequently is my red pashmina/scarf thing. Very useful, not just as a scarf, but also as a blanket on planes, and as a supplement to the crappy pillows you always get in hotels.

2. How many trips has/have it/they taken with you? Quite a few, actually. I got that scarf in 2000, and I know it went to Canada with me, and to New Zealand, I think...

3. Where have you taken it/them? See above - Canada, New Zealand, up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia.

4. Where's next? There are vague plans forming in the back of my mind to go to Washington D.C. next year sometime, depending on finances etc.

5. Why? I have a rather strong desire to see the American Constitution, and to see the Supreme Court in session, and visit the Lincoln Memorial... basically after several years of studying the country, I want to experience it first hand.

Beta blogger

2006-08-15T10:21:00.000+10:00

Finally!

The next version of Blogger is in beta, and it looks like it's going to include all those features that everyone else has been taking for granted for ages. Features like labels! And being able to restrict who reads what post! And can I just say again, labels!

Very, very excited. It's in limited release right now, so only a few people are able to convert their current blogs over to the new system at the moment. But if you want to play around, you can create a new blog (using a Google account) here.

Bereft

2006-08-14T12:46:00.000+10:00

I accidentally left my diary on my desk at work on Friday morning, and have felt, well, incomplete all weekend. My entire life is in that small black book, and I've found incredibly difficult to operate without it for the last two days! When I went into work this morning to pick it up, my boss joked that he could have held me ransom for its return. I replied, with all seriousness, that I would have given him all I owned to get it back. No-one separates Mads from her diary!

In other news - did anyone else in Canberra see the fantastic message written in the sky at noon today? If you don't know the background story, have a look here. I've participated in a few of GetUp's campaigns, and I think they're doing some great things. Congratulations on this latest achievement - according to The Age, it looks like the pressure was successful in getting John Howard to dump the proposed asylum laws. I took some photos on my phone, but for some reason I haven't been able to email anything to my flickr account for a while, so I might not be able to put them up. But I will try!