Since my regular soup reviewer won't be reviewing this one, I thought I'd try my hand at soup sampling once again. This month's NCG Soup of the Month is the hearty-sounding Chicken, Vegetable & Pearl Barley.

It has a leek and potato base making this a satisfying soup for the winter. However, the chicken and assorted vegetables (peas and carrots mostly) give it a more exciting flavour. The pearl barley adds something a little fun to the texture of the soup too. All in all, a fine winter warmer, although sadly not one that's vegetarian-friendly. There's always next month's Smokey Plum Tomato & Black Bean though, which promises to be quite a treat for tomato fans.

We were just passing so stopped to take a look for a couple of minutes. This little engine was pulling passengers up and down the short section of track in two carriages. Everyone travelling this weekend was being given a complementary warm mince pie.

At last, the end is in sight. Attentive readers may have noticed that my posts have been few and far between of late. The pre-holiday stretch at work this year has been somewhat demanding, taking up more of my time over the past month or so than it would normally have done. Work itself hasn't been excessively heavy, but we've been making lots of internal changes, which has devoured what few gaps I used to have in my working day.

I think we're nearing the end of that process now though, and in any case tomorrow is supposed to be my last day at work before Christmas, so I'm looking forward to a few days to myself and a swift return to normality in the new year. The weather has disrupted things - the office was closed on Friday due to the snow - so it's possible I'll have to do some work on Wednesday too to catch up, but I can do that from home in my dressing gown and slippers which doesn't feel so bad somehow.

The photo above was snapped on my way in to work this morning. It was taken in roughly the same spot as the snowy photo I took back in January - as you can see, it's a little heavier this time. Despite some rain today, the snow doesn't seem to be shifting, so no doubt it will continue to cause disruption for a few days to come.

I spotted this at Tesco the other week but hadn't got around to posting it. Not that it's hugely post-worthy. One of the refrigerators in the store broke down and, this being a rather small branch of Tesco, that unit was home to the store's entire range of fresh meat - which had to be taken back to the stock room. So for a day our Tesco store was mostly vegetarian. :)

I ventured outside for some fresh air this afternoon and met this fellow in a nearby car park. I thought he looked quite jolly. He even has a balloon!

Well, the first real snow anyway. It tried earlier in the week, but this is the first time we've had any snow lay properly. Apparently the office is closed today so I have a day working from home, which will make a nice change.
 

I overslept this morning. I woke up at 10am to the sound of my phone buzzing madly as people in the office began to panic. Somehow I managed to sleep through all of my alarm clocks; I have several of them so it's not an easy thing to do.

I think my body just decided it had had enough and it was going to ignore the outside world and shut down and get some sleep. It's been a hellish few weeks at work; I'm working two or three hours each evening at the moment just to keep on top of things. Family have been placing more demands on my time in the run up to the holidays. And, of course, I've got to make time for the rest of my life too. So sleep has suffered as I've tried to find an extra hour or two each day.

So tired... I really just want to put everything on hold for a week and spend the time sleeping or doing all of the little odd jobs that I don't have the time for right now but which gnaw at me day after day.

At last! A weekend! Work has been so manic (not in a particularly good way) and draining these past couple of weeks that weekends feel like little islands of calm, offering an all too brief respite from navigating the choppy seas. This hasn't really helped my stress or my ever-growing blog backlog.

I'm taking a break from everything this weekend though to see friends, which will be nice. Not long now until Christmas/new year, then I can take a reasonably long break from work, albeit one partly filled with "family fun".

The photo above is looking across the Medway from Rochester towards Frindsbury, a few miles up the river from the photo of the estuary I took several weeks ago. The trains are rather chaotic today due to work on the line I usually use, so I'm having to take a roundabout route - on train number three now. Still, it's nice to see a few different views out of the window.

The next 4 hours of my life will be challenging.

I've talked a little in the past about my tendency to play online games with a female avatar and probably will again in the future; maybe I'll whip up a full post or three on the subject one day. The reasons are numerous and complex, but can be summed up reasonably well by saying that role-playing as a female usually allows me to create a character that I feel more comfortable being. One thing that has always fascinated and, to an extent, amused me, is that I seem to make quite a believable female. In fact, more believable than most genuine females. >_> This can cause some issues when playing casual multiplayer games.

I forget how many gifts, "friendship" requests and marriage proposals I have received over the years while playing online games - I don't accept any of them, but still they come. It never, ever happens when I'm playing with a male avatar - only a female one. I reject the usual arguments about unbalanced online populations as I know that quite a few of the games I have played have had quite balanced populations gender-wise. I just seem to fail at male, but give off all the right signals for a friendly, fertile female.

Ragnarok Online was one of the few games I played where I managed to overcome this strange phenomenon by building up my character's reputation - somehow women who are capable warriors don't trigger the same moe response in male players as the ones who are locked in mortal combat with their first level 1 killer rabbit.

Anyway, in a quiet spell last week, I came across the installation files for Perfect World, a free-to-play MMO that I trialed briefly last year. Curious to see what had changed, I had a quick look at the website and thought a few of the updates sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try for an hour or two to play around with a few of the purported new features. I'd lost the original installation when my hard disk died at the start of this year, but thankfully the installer I had downloaded last year still worked saving me a rather hefty download - although the subsequent patching probably made up for that.
 

 
Some of the new features - like mounts - were both useful and fun. Others - Genies would be a prime example - seemed rather pointless. The game still looked quite pretty though, so I spent some time roaming around on my shiny new mount (a Perfect World anniversary gift given to all beta accounts, apparently) with a rather garish neon blue glow. (I wonder why I dislike colourful auras in fantasy games so much?) Inevitably, I found myself chatting to a group of players about NPC locations and picked up an admirer along the way. I thought I'd share this tale as the blind will and determination of this particular individual really did impress me... in a scary kind of way.

It began as a discussion about mounts. He was a regular player with a sizable collection and proudly showed them all off. I made some impressed-sounding noises that seemed to go down well and was offered a ride on one in particular that I had remarked upon. We were an all-female group and I wasn't the only one to comment, but as usual, my character was the recipient of the unwanted attention.

Because I'm stupid and can't think of excuses fast enough, I said yes. So, we rapidly sped away from civilisation and I eventually found myself perched on a secluded rock overlooking the river. Inevitably the question came, although I was impressed at how he got straight to the point. They were the first words out of his mouth after we stopped.

Hmm, how to deal with the question this time... By far the simplest way would have been to respond with "hi, i r guy" or words to that effect. However, over the years, I've become more cautious about using that response as it sometimes provokes rather nasty reactions. He seemed the sort that might have been a little freaked out had I revealed my true nature, so I went with the ever-reliable plan "B" - maintaining the illusion but making myself unavailable.

By the way, you may be wondering why I don't say "yes". I mean, it doesn't get any simpler than that, surely? Well, past experience has shown that "yes" doesn't mean much to horny male MMO gamers. When it reaches their ears, it somehow transforms into a "not really" or a "sort of, but show me what you're offering". I have taken to avoiding "yes" wherever possible as it's a card that rarely works well and, when played, closes off other escape routes.

Success! That was easy.

Maybe too easy... I can see where this is going. Most will have given up by now, but I'd estimate that around a quarter of gamers trying their luck attempt to use this technique to get around the obstacle I have placed in front of them, gambling on any latent bisexual tendencies I might have.

This seems to be the natural progression from their previous approach when it begins to fail them. You'd be surprised at just how often people adopt this angle.

This one was proving to be quite a challenge. All but the outright desperate will usually have given up by now. Time to play the "game over" card that, until now, has never failed me.

Done! Game over! The end.

... This took me by surprise. I had to re-read it a couple of times and ask myself "did he seriously just say that?" - apparently he did. It's never happened to me before; even the most determined ones know when they're beaten. Really, how are you meant to respond to that? It was clear by now that reason wasn't going to work, so I made up an excuse to depart, rambled briefly about how I was sure he would find someone more suited to him and made my escape.

This is a rather extreme example, but the same kind of thing happens to me in nearly every MMO-type game I play. I say "nearly every" as it hasn't happened to me on Japanese game servers - only International/US ones. Are American teenagers bolder, or do I just make a very unappealing Japanese girl? A question to ponder...

There was some rather sad news floating around the Wired over the weekend that came to my attention today (thanks Max). Jeong Hoon Park, better known as SeeD/Seedark, passed away recently, reportedly after a battle against leukaemia. SeeD was a prominent figure at Ntreev Soft and arguably their greatest human asset, taking on a number of artistic roles over the years including illustrator, character designer and eventually art director for Pangya, Ntreev's popular online fantasy golf game. Anyone who has played Pangya would probably agree that SeeD's cute, colourful visuals are a large part of the appeal of the game. According to his website, SeeD had begun working on a new Ntreev project early in 2009.

The news was originally broken on the twitter feed of JinBae Park (aka ESTi), a friend of SeeD and the composer of many of the songs used in Pangya (as well as a number of other games). I have quoted the original, rather personal post and provided a rough SoZlation beneath. I apologise in advance for any inaccuracies, but my Japanese is terribly rusty.

All rather sad, and a little sobering considering that SeeD was my age. Since he was one of my favourite character artists, I thought I'd share a little of his work for the benefit of those who may not have encountered him before. You'll find image links to a couple of my favourite illustrations (click for the full image) below and a link to the gallery on SeeD's website.
 

Related articles at: Kotaku, Canned Dogs, Ntreev Pangya (USA) forum

Like many people, I collect old carrier bags to reuse around the home as handy disposable bags and bin liners. I tend to acquire more bags than I use, despite using a pair of reusable hessian bags for nearly all of my grocery shopping, so spare plastic bags are added to a cache I keep in a box in my utility cupboard.

Some months ago, I discovered that something rather nasty had started to happen to some of the bags I had in storage. Only the relatively recent Tesco biodegradable bags seemed to be affected. They had started to degrade.

It was a bit of a shock when I encountered my first specimen. It was a Tesco bag stuffed down the side of the box, its handle poking out of the top, that I had chosen on that particular day to have the honour of lining my kitchen bin. I reached for the handle and felt nothing. When I withdrew my hand, I found in it a fistful of dust, a fine white powder with almost no mass. I touched the bag again and it turned to dust before my eyes. It could have been a scene out of a nightmare. It felt really freaky to the touch too.

It took a little while to work out what was happening; that this was nature taking its course and that I wasn't stuck in a nightmare questioning the fabric of reality, nor was the smoke alarm located just above defective and irradiating the cupboard. Cleaning up took a little while as dust and fragments of bag had gone everywhere. The worst part though was knowing that I had several dozen identical bags buried at the bottom of the box. I decided to leave them for another day.

Fast-forward several months to my current intensive sorting out spree. In preparation for a move in the next few months, I'm systematically going through everything in the flat. Junk I don't need is being cleared out, things that are broken are being fixed, and everything that I don't need to have access to on a daily basis is being put into boxes. This weekend, I had reached the entry on my to-do list labelled simply "utility cupboard". Filled with dread, I set to work.

As I removed the bags from the box, dust and fragments flew everywhere and the fumes of decomposing plastic were overwhelming. About half of the 50 or so Tesco biodegradable bags (an estimate, since the decomposed ones had blended together) had undergone this change. A few more were beginning to show unhealthy signs - the first symptom, I discovered, appeared to be brittleness in the handles. I threw the lot away as it was clear they would all meet the same fate eventually.
 

 
Anyway, everything is neat and tidy again now, although I've been sneezing regularly; hopefully that will stop once the dust disappears from my system. Apparently it's non-toxic, but it still can't be all that good.

A word of warning then to all fellow bag hoarders: Don't keep biodegradable bags around for a long time (no longer than about 6 months, I would guess) and check your hoard regularly so that you can take action promptly before things get messy.

I spent a day out with the family today and ended up going on a short walk around a wildlife park north of Gillingham, by the Medway estuary. The tide was out which was a pity as the views at high tide would probably have been quite pleasant, even if the estuary is quite an industrial area, home to Kingsnorth power station and other huge concrete installations.

Still, the weather was pleasingly autumnal and the tidal waters were still visible in the distance, so it wasn't too bad. I snapped this picture of water traffic towards the north of the estuary; there were hundreds of boats out on the water today, making the most of the good weather no doubt. If you look carefully (click to zoom), you should be able to make out the Waverley, a restored paddle steamer, paying a visit to the area. It was packed with passengers.

I'm still working through a huge backlog of things I need to do caused by work taking nearly all of my free time this week, so I don't expect I'll be around much for a couple of days. Everything should be back to normal after that though. I have a string of posts I've been planning to make for a while and hopefully next month I'll finally be able to find the time to make them.

It's been another "fun" week at work so I've had to put my life on hold again for a few days. A hardware failure of one of our remotely hosted servers killed it and brought down everything else in the rack early on Tuesday morning, so my time since then has been spent setting up a shiny, new replacement. The good news is that the replacement works much better than the old one ever did, so I may end up getting more time back over the next year that would otherwise have been invested in maintenance than I've spent fiddling with things over the last day or two.

Anyway, all of that is the reason that this post is being made some time after the more enjoyable events of the weekend.
 

On Saturday, I journeyed up to Spitalfields market in London with friends for the Japan Matsuri, an event organised to commemorate the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations and trade between Japan and the UK. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day out. The three stages played host to a variety of performances, my favourites being the taiko and yosakoi demonstrations by the Acton-based Japanese School as well as the very visual, offbeat musical act by Frank Chickens. There were also a number of food stalls, but most of the popular ones had queues that looked at least half an hour long, so I had to forego my yakisoba — which should put the post I made the following day in context. I did have some fried cheesy rice balls that were yummy, although quite rich.
 

Apparently the event was a big success with over 30,000 attendees (around 15,000 were expected) visiting over the course of the day. The organisers are already planning another event next year. For videos and photos of the day, take a look at this recent post on the Japan Matsuri website. I may put up a gallery page with a few snaps once I've looked through them properly; it depends on whether I can find enough that aren't too dire.

At last! And I didn't even have to queue.

Hunting for food at the Japan Matsuri. I'm not a tako fan, but I must admit that they do look yummy.

I finally found the courage to try my carton of beans this evening so this will be a short review on what I ate for dinner. Whatever did I do before technology allowed me to share this drivel with the world?

The combination of chocolate and a chilli-like concoction had me a little worried. I've seen many chilli-flavoured chocolate bars and avoided every single one because to my ears the combination sounds so wrong. It does seem popular though so perhaps I am actually missing out on something good. I have a feeling it will be a long while before I feel brave enough to find out. The ingredients list claimed that the mixture in the carton was less than 1% chocolate which reassured me a little; at least at that concentration I hopefully wouldn't be able to taste much of it.

So, into the saucepan it went. It smelt safe which was another good sign. Once it was done, I dished it up and took this highly staged photo of it sitting in a bowl on my table - before taking it to my desk so that I could devour it in front of my keyboard in a very unrefined fashion while reading the news.

The verdict? Quite nice, actually. The strangest thing was that I couldn't taste the chocolate at all. I imagine it did contribute to the flavour in some way, but I couldn't isolate it. The overwhelming flavour was one of tomatoes, which makes sense looking at the list of ingredients. Otherwise it was quite a pleasant and warming, if slightly heavy, chilli-based soup. Probably an ideal one for the winter. When it will no longer be stocked because this month will have been and gone. >_>

An alternative title for today's ramble could be "Why I don't want a motorbike."

I came across a few interesting if morbid statistics the other day, published by the UK Department for Transport about a decade ago, comparing the safety of different modes of transport. The statistics themselves have been reproduced in a number of locations including a study on railway safety and the Wikipedia article on air safety, which was where I originally came across them. To me though, the most surprising figures have nothing to do with trains and planes but rather the safety of the humble two-wheeled contraption I mentioned above.

The DfT do have more recent (2008) statistics available, but there isn't a huge amount of difference in the numbers between then and now and I'd rather not figure out all of the derived numbers, so I'll use the statistics from a decade ago in the following charts.

Let's begin with a look at fatalities per billion passenger journeys for each mode of transport - that is, given one billion passengers and if we assume that the trends will continue, the number of passengers likely to snuff it on any given journey.
 

 
I'll talk quickly about the other modes of transport before starting on the one at the bottom that stands out like a sore thumb and is obviously the subject of this post. There aren't any real surprises if you ignore the last row. Bus/coach and rail are predictable winners, being vehicles of mass transit that trundle around on a fixed route. Due to their size, they're also quite likely to come off reasonably unscathed when they happen to encounter lesser vehicles. Interestingly, car and foot both seem to carry the same per-journey risk.

The more eccentric methods of transporting people from place to place that involve a vessel floating on or in a medium subject to the whims of nature - water and air - don't fare quite so well, although neither is particularly high. Some might be a little surprised by the figure for air given the airline industry's often-quoted adage about being the safest way to travel, but depending on how you interpret the numbers they are correct - we'll come to that later on. I take on average perhaps two flights per year (counting the return), which would carry the same level of risk as six journeys by foot. Since I've been walking daily for close to three decades and haven't yet (to the best of my knowledge) suffered a fatal accident doing so, travelling by plane once a year doesn't particularly trouble me. Next to last, we have bicycles; presumably these are the lesser vehicles the coaches and buses sometimes encounter.

So, the motorbike... No, I didn't make a mistake when typing up the statistics and accidentally put an extra digit in there. According to the DfT, the risk of death per passenger journey really is an order of magnitude greater than the next most dangerous mode of transport, the motorbike's non-motorised cousin. The combination of weaving in and out of traffic and low visibility probably accounts for a large number, although I'd bet that unsafe behaviour factors heavily in there too. Living just down the road from a motorcycle garage, I often see riders doing well over 60mph in what is supposed to be a 30mph zone, doing wheelies and sometimes coming dangerously close to having a nasty accident. One day someone's luck is bound to run out. In which event I shall take photos and blog about them here as a prime example of human stupidity. It suffices to say that I can quite believe this number, high though it may be.

Anyway, next chart - fatalities per billion passenger hours.
 

 
Not too many surprises. Bus/coach and rail stay in the lead with air close behind. Car and foot don't do quite as well as before, falling towards the bottom. The two-wheeled contraptions yet again claim the last two rows of the chart though. The numbers tell a very sobering story. On average, you are over 400 times more likely to die during an hour spent travelling by motorcycle as you are during an hour on a bus.

Last one - fatalities per billion passenger kilometres.
 

 
You may recall my comments earlier about the airline industry's safety claims not matching up with the evidence in the first chart. The third chart is the one they will refer you to if you ask for numbers. When distance is taken into account, air travel leaps ahead. Statistically, you are 60 times more likely to die per kilometre covered in a car than in an aircraft.

The rest of the chart is unsurprising, although human-powered travel (foot and bicycle) does rather badly - I suppose because it takes far longer to cover the distance. But wait! What's that at the bottom? Gosh, it's the motorcycle again. Whoever could have predicted that? It isn't a long way off the end this time as it's being kept company by foot and bicycle. The fatality rate is still over two thousand times higher than that of air travel though, which is a big, scary number.

I've only ridden on the back of a motorcycle once - my uncle's - on a long, winding road down the side of a steep hill. It probably only took minutes but it seemed to last much, much longer. I've felt more secure on the back of a horse that didn't want me to be there; it was really quite a terrifying sensation.

It's an odd contraption when you think about it; not really designed for convenience or great comfort and, as the numbers show (however you add them up), is probably the least safe way of getting from A to B ever devised. But people do ride them by choice. It seems to be favoured predominantly by manly men who find that placing a throbbing metal beast between their legs and enjoying the countryside by tearing through it at ludicrous speeds reinforces their feelings of manly worth. I think it was Kiddy Grade that described motorbikes (albeit ones that hovered) as "mechanical horses for jocks" or something similar. I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly nice people who ride motorcycles too, and obviously there must be some appeal - I just don't know quite what that is.

Anyway, yes. I think I can safely say that I don't think I'll be buying a motorbike. Ever. And I should probably wave farewell to whatever motorbike-loving audience I had too since I doubt they'll visit again after I've flamed their mode of transport of choice.

In other news! ... Nothing much has happened. I've been doing quite a bit of clearing up and sorting out for the past week. I'm looking around at flats in the local area to see what's available as my contract on this place runs out in a couple of months. Although it's looking less and less likely that I'll be able to move in November (running out of holiday at work doesn't give me any days to look at flats or move), I want to be ready in case an amazing opportunity presents itself. And if nothing comes up, I shall at least be extra ready for the next contract expiration date in the spring when I will also have more than enough holiday to do my flat-hunting.

Today was nice and damp and grey for the first time in a while. The temperature was quite a bit cooler than last week too. With the clocks going back in a little under two weeks, I feel I can comfortably say that autumn has arrived.

It's choc full of them, apparently. Definitely one of the more unusual flavours. A verdict will be blogged when I feel brave enough to try it.

09-09-09 09:09 :) If I were Data and stuck in a temporal loop, I would wonder if my past self might be trying to tell me something.

The summer is supposedly over but it's been a rather warm start to the week, helped along by blazing sunshine. Thankfully the clouds are supposed to roll in today and stick around for the rest of the week, which is a nice relief as warehouse plus sun does not a pleasant working environment make. Not much sign of them yet though...

I haven't really been up to anything blogworthy recently. I've resumed working on a mini project that I started and then forgot about ages ago which is sucking up a lot of my time. I'll probably blog a little more about it in a few weeks when I have something to show.

I finally got around to watching Paprika a couple of weeks ago. I bought it last year, but whenever I thought about watching it, something would come up and get in the way. Admittedly I was a little fussy about what I would accept as a suitable time to watch it - it had to be a quiet day without any rushing about and I had to be awake; I know that doesn't sound hard but I seem to have had remarkably few days this year that would come close to qualifying.

Anyway, the recent three-day weekend at last gave me the chance to sit down and enjoy Satoshi Kon's latest motion picture. I'd managed to avoid gossip and spoilers - I hadn't even looked at the box - so the only thing I knew going into the film was that it had something to do with dreams. An hour and a half later, I was satisfied, if a bit dazed. I'd say it was one of Kon's more challenging works, closer in execution to something like Mousou Dairinin/Paranoia Agent than his other films which, while a little muddled at times, are quite well grounded.

A theme that has prevailed through nearly all of his works, from Magnetic Rose onwards, has been the symbiosis of dreams and reality. In a way, Paprika feels like the culmination of his work on this theme - what everything so far has been building to. This time, the exploration of the connection between reality and dreams is at the heart of the film, not just part of the story or a means with which to tell it. The story itself is a mirror of Kon's metapsychological musings and, in a fascinating display of recursion, the characters are as much a part of the film's exploration of the field as they are of their own. The title of Kon's next feature film, Yume Miru Kikai, appears to suggest that Kon doesn't feel he's reached a conclusion just yet though.

As I had expected to, I loved the film. It may require a second viewing to appreciate more fully though; it moves at quite a pace and there's always a lot going on, making it a little hard to follow and bits and pieces can easily be missed. It's certainly very different from something like Millennium Actress, for example, which has a unique charm and much slower pace. For anyone prepared to give it the time and attention it demands though, I think Paprika should prove to be a fascinating and rewarding film.

One last quick post to wrap up my trip to Switzerland. I think I'm mostly recovered from the travelling, although I'm looking forward to the upcoming three day weekend to catch up on sleep properly. A few more photos...

I'll begin with a couple of horse/pony photos I dug out due to popular request. The first shows the horses that took us up the valley to the dairy farm. It was amazingly sunny so everything is a little overexposed. The second photo is one of the bossy ponies that lived at the upper Madrisa cableway station.

 
Next up, we have a photo of the sign at the bottom of the Madrissa cableway on the same day. It was about 15 degrees cooler at the top, thank goodness.

 
Here's a photo half-way up the same cableway on a different day (the day I encountered the lizard). The clouds started just above the valley floor and ended just below the upper station.

 
Now that I'm back, I've also copied off the video I shot of the cows and their bells. Sadly I was far away so the cows are small dots, but the bells can be heard quite clearly if you turn the volume up.

 
Finally, I'll leave you with a couple more landscape photos. The first is yet another view of the glacier, but quite a clear one. The second is of nothing in particular, but I loved the tumultuous landscape and the colours caused by the patchy cloud. The Swiss alpine region is undeniably magnificent.

I found this caterpillar creeping along the balcony this morning as I was packing. Not exactly a prime example of Swiss wildlife, but it was a fun caterpillar. I found the seed on the ground and, upon presenting it to the caterpillar, it proceeded to crawl back and forth along the seed casing.

I'm back home now but very tired, so a wrap-up post will have to wait until later in the week.

I returned to the pony paddock today and encountered this little creature not far away. I believe, after some Wikipedia poking, that it's a viviparous lizard; although if anyone with greater reptile knowledge disagrees, feel free to correct me in the comments. Whatever it is, it's cute though, even if it did prove difficult to capture in a photo.

I'm heading home tomorrow, so sadly this will probably be my last Swiss wildlife post, except perhaps for the video of the cows and their bells I mentioned earlier in the week.

Two rather bossy ponies just outside the entrance to Madrisa's upper cableway station. They shared a paddock with three donkeys and an alpaca, but it was clear who ran the place. If one of the ponies wanted hay that one of the other animals had, the other animal went hungry. It was fun to watch the politics at work.

A quiet stretch of the Schlappinbach in the middle of a forest around Monbiel. The Silvretta glacier can be seen through the trees. Everything is beautifully fresh and clean.

A pair of lovely horses just outside Klosters-Platz railway station. They later took us on an hour-long trip to visit a cheese dairy in Alp Novai, deep in the Monbiel valley, where the owner was all too happy to show us his cellars and let us sample his various cheeses; I don't think I've ever met anyone quite so enthused about cheese. The same horses, now refreshed, returned us to Klosters; the journey back was mostly downhill though so only took 45 minutes.

This was quite fun. The Schlittelbahn near Davos is a fairly short (500m) rodelbahn - a metal toboggan track designed for use in the summer months with a wheeled toboggan. I snapped this photo near the top of the course.

Another photo of the lake, this time from the Davos side looking roughly north. The lake is fed by a number of mountain rivers which start only a few miles away, and so is crystal clear, as should be apparent from the bottom of this photo.

Time for a few more photos. I'll begin with Lake Davos (or Davosersee), a small lake just outside the town of Davos, the settlement you can see across the water.

Here's another landscape snap from a walk I took this afternoon. The scenery certainly makes for more interesting walks than I can enjoy in Maidstone. >_> My vantage point this time was half way between Klosters and Davos on a small trail at around six thousand feet above sea level (or three thousand feet above the valley floor). It affords a slightly better view of the Silvretta glacier at the end of the valley than yesterday's photo did. Oh, and in case you were wondering if I climbed those three thousand feet, no, I did not; thankfully the region is well serviced by cable cars and mountain railways. Hooray for technology and mountain climbing the lazy way. :)

Today was quite hot and sunny, but 30°C down in the valley means 15°C a few thousand feet up which is a much more pleasant temperature for wandering. I haven't done much today other than explore a little bit of the local area, but it was still quite pleasant. I think the plan is to venture into Davos tomorrow as by the time we reached there today it was time to come home.

I also made friends with a sparrow this afternoon while waiting on the platform at Davos station. It had been searching the platform for dropped food which it then took back to a group of half a dozen sparrows waiting on the other side of the tracks. I would have said that they were a mother and her chicks were it not for the fact that the "chicks" were fully grown; I thought they would have been far from home by now, although I'm not an expert on bird behaviour.

Anyway, on a close pass, I offered the sparrow a grain of puffed rice from my cereal bar which was eagerly received. The sparrow stood for a second after picking up the rice and became quite vocal for a moment which it had not done previously when collecting fallen scraps. (I wonder what it was communicating and to whom?) After returning to the others and sharing the spoils, the same sparrow returned a further three times, landing right at my feet, and each time we completed the same ritual. On the fifth visit, once I had finished my snack, I held up my empty hands and apologised; the sparrow became vocal again briefly and went back to scouring the rest of the platform. I'm sure birds have more intelligence than we give them credit for.

On a completely unrelated note and to briefly touch once again on Twitter, I read this interesting article today. According to experts, only 8.7% of Twitter messages have any value. I would have said their figure was still a little high.

...with the sound of moo-sic. These lovely cows were camped by the side of a path I was walking along today. They may look grumpy, but they're just half-asleep. They were actually very friendly.

The sound of their bells carries for miles (I'm not exaggerating) leading to a melodious chorus of cow bells echoing down the valley whenever the herd is on the move. I may see if I can capture it on video to share when I get home.

For such a small creature, this little fellow made a lot of noise.

Sighted in the local Co-Op. The fractal vegetable is a bit of a rarity in the UK.

I'm going to keep this short as after an early start, close to a full day's travelling and a little sightseeing, I'm absolutely exhausted.

Klosters, a quiet town near Davos in the far east of Switzerland, will be my home for the next week. Apparently it's packed in the winter as skiers descend upon the town in order to hurl themselves down the steep slopes that surround it on all sides. In the summer though, it's quite a sleepy little village, its only visitors being construction workers eager to finish various projects before the harsh winter sets in and hikers who enjoy the sights of the glacial valley in the summer.

The photo above is a view I snapped after a quick cable car ride earlier this afternoon, looking over Klosters and down the valley towards snow-covered peaks and the Austrian border that lies just beyond them.

Just about to board the aircraft for our 0710 flight. Since I'm not going to pay roaming charges, my next post will probably be when I get to my hotel.

See you soon~

Spotted at Heathrow terminal 5.

This is a little experiment as this is the first time I've ever tried blogging photos from my phone. I quickly threw some code together to allow me to easily bring you photos from the field before I left today; sadly there wasn't time to do much testing so I'll just have to hope it all works.

I'm heading off to the mountains of Switzerland for a week so there won't be any lengthy posts for a while. I may however dump a few snaps here if I take any of interest.

The photo above is of a corridor in the hotel I'm staying in tonight. It's not very clear from the photo as cameras tend to flatten everything, but in person the corridor seems to stretch on forever... I should probably nominate this post as a candidate for the least interesting blog post I've ever made.

I went travelling at the weekend to attend a wedding. On the way, we stopped off at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire. I don't tend to enjoy visiting zoos all that much. I think we're quite lucky in this country that the welfare of the animals being exhibited is taken into account. I've only ever felt uncomfortable enough about the conditions the animals were being kept in to walk out during a zoo visit once and that wasn't in this country.

Even so, a zoo is still a zoo and I prefer to see wildlife in the wild. I have to say that as zoos go though, Whipsnade does seem to be one of the better ones. Many of the species that aren't likely to munch on people or each other are allowed to roam free across the park. The elephant enclosure was very impressive; actually, it was less of an enclosure and more of a large field. But the space and features allowed the elephants in the park to exhibit herd behaviour and live quite naturally. There were a few areas I felt could be a little larger or more stimulating, but on the whole, it didn't seem a bad place to visit. (Although due to the size of some of the enclosures, the park is huge - be prepared to bring a good pair of walking shoes.)

I snapped a few photos which I'll leave here.
 

I was going to wait until Friday before posting this so that I had a whole week to dwell on all things Twitter. I don't know how much time I will have on Friday evening though, so I'm posting this a day early.

Last Friday, you may remember, I experimented with microblogging, posting frequent updates throughout the day in the style of Twitter's "tweets". (Why do all social networking projects use silly names and terms?) It was a silly idea that grew out of boredom, but there was a more serious side to it too. Despite obviously having an online presence and living much of my life online, very little other than this blog is public. I am very private and like to pick and choose whom I share things with rather than broadcast to the world. I was therefore a little curious what it would be like to do one of those things I've frowned upon for so long and dismissed as a shallow social fad.

Before I start commenting on my experience though, I thought that maybe someone out there might appreciate an explanation of each of the messages I posted last Friday. I wonder if any were completely misunderstood?
 

We begin with a simple statement of fact indicating that I was quite pleased that the week was nearing an end.
 

As Yuri pointed out, not much to say about this one - it is what it says. Somehow these clear, unambiguous messages don't seem much like the worthless, context-dependent messages I've seen on the few Twitter pages I've looked at before.
 

I think I ended up doing reasonably well with my contextless babble in the end though. Especially for a first timer.
 

This one does require some context to get the most out of. I suppose I could have explained more about the cats as I wasn't anywhere near the character limit, but I wanted to make this one as context-free and Twitteresque as possible to prove a point - that most "tweets" are worthless without background.

As I leave my flat, there's a window in the corridor just outside my door that overlooks another flat - a big, posh one with a balcony. Two cats live there and occasionally, when the weather is good, they come out and lounge around on a beanbag and chair. They must be able to hear me locking the door as they always look up when I leave if they're there. As I don't live with a cat at the moment but am very much a cat person, it is pleasing to see them a few times each week. They must have been busy snoozing elsewhere last Friday though.
 

Another semi-cryptic one. I have a kettle in the office at work (my own, since the office kettle broke and Boss wouldn't replace it) that I use once or twice a day to make myself a hot chocolate. It has a habit of wandering off when I'm not around though.
 

I work in an office with two others - both men, one in his late thirties and the other in his late teens. I used to work in silence when I was the only one there, but the others prefer to work with music on in the background. To keep things fair, the two get to pick a station to listen to on alternate days (I opted out). This particular day, it was the turn of the younger of the two, in case you hadn't guessed.

And I really, really do dislike that song. If you feel you have room for some more pain in your life, I have included this handy link. While I'm on the subject of bad songs, I also hate this one, another regular on the horrid KISS FM. Possibly even less original and even more dreadful than the Sugababes' effort.
 

I should probably get around to installing the patched versions soon...
 

>_>;;
 

Yes, I should. Bad SoZ.
 

A reply to Kiri's comment on KISS FM. Have I mentioned how much I dislike that station? For those unfamiliar with it (I would be if it weren't for its regular appearance in my office), it's one of those really annoying stations that has a playlist of about 5 songs that the public have decided are currently "cool" - and it plays them over and over.
 

Perhaps it's just me...

XKCD is one of two webcomics I read daily, the other being Dilbert. I used to read Penny Arcade religiously, but at some point during my wonky spell, I stopped. A pity as I usually found it quite enjoyable. I'd like to start again, but I want to catch up on the strips I missed before picking the comic up properly again. Since the strip and news post are generally related, there's quite a bit of reading to do per strip; I'd probably need a couple of completely empty days to plod through two or three years' worth of comics. OOTS is another one I need to pick up again.
 

Random work-related rambling. It would take a little while to explain and no one cares so I won't bother.
 

None at all. I meant to bring one to work in the morning since I didn't have time for breakfast, but I ended up forgetting.
 

Well, if Max does too, at least I'm not alone. It probably has something to do with me not really knowing the originals all that well and listening to the Weird Al versions many, many times several years ago.
 

I wonder why the character limit on Twitter is so short. To make them compatible with SMS, perhaps? Although multi-message SMS is common these days, so that doesn't make much sense. I can understand limiting the length of messages to force them to be short and to the point, but 140 characters feels really mean.
 

I was really missing my apple by now...
 

A short break from databases made a nice change. But ugh, Dreamweaver. It's another of those Adobe tools that attempts to be everything to everyone. Photoshop pulls it off much better though. For entry-level users, Dreamweaver is too intimidating; for advanced users, it tries to be helpful but just ends up getting in the way. I imagine its days must be numbered considering that the web has moved away from static content and its support for server-side scripting, AJAX and other current technologies is less than poor.
 

Nearly a week on and I'm still uncertain. Around noon, the novelty was definitely beginning to wear off.
 

It's just a short distance from the office so quite convenient for running out to get something at lunch when I haven't made sandwiches.
 

Kiri commented on a Tesco near him, so I thought I'd mention that my Tesco store probably wasn't in the same league as his - it's a "real" Tesco store rather than an Express or a Metro but it's tiny and doesn't stock a very wide range.

It was so tempting to make this reply a short, context-free comment, laced with double entendres referring to comparative size. I thought it best to keep it clean though. >_>
 

This was probably my most random "tweet" of the day. I was rummaging in my wallet to sort out money for Tesco when I came across a Japan Centre till receipt. There was a banner at the bottom that read "Served by Sayaka" and I decided I liked the sound of the name.
 

I had to move a few cables around. My desk at work is closed on three sides, so the hot air from the PC under the desk gets trapped there. Very cosy around my ankles in the winter.
 

Just a stray thought. I've never been able to work this one out. They're just not user friendly.
 

And I did remember! Although only after skimming through my post at the weekend. Perhaps I have discovered a useful purpose for Twitter.
 

I guess it's a mild autistic trait. There's just something about things being in the wrong place - be it screwdrivers in the wrong (but clearly labelled!!!) compartments or DVDs in the wrong cases - that really irks me. Usually I have to right the wrong before I can stop thinking about it. I don't expect everyone to have my anal attention to detail, but come on; if the picture on the label is of a small Phillips screwdriver, why on earth would you put an Allen key in there?
 

Poor Yuri. As if manic work wasn't enough, she has to put up with people "tweeting" at her too.
 

Friday is a bit of an odd day at work. Sometimes it can be incredibly slow and at other times a mad rush. The last day of the month is always busy though as the salespeople have to meet monthly targets. A Friday that happens to fall on the last day of the month is usually super busy.
 

An all-too-brief respite. This time I didn't have to wait for my kettle to come back though.
 

Back to Tesco. Since I lack a car, I have to plan my shopping a little. I usually pop to Tesco in my lunch hour during the week; even if I bring my own lunch, it's nice to get out of the office for a little while. I can pick up any groceries and essentials I need while I'm there. A couple of times a month though (generally after work on Friday), I do a much larger shop, which includes frozen and bulky/heavy items that I cannot buy during the week. I then get a taxi back to my flat. It costs exactly the same as a home delivery, except that I get to be picky and choose from all of the products on the shelf. I also tend to buy a lot of "on offer" products which are usually easier to spot in the store than they are on the website.
 

I read the best before date incorrectly. It was actually August 1st 2010. The packets normally retail at around £1, I think, so I've no idea how they ended up at 10p - unless someone made the same mistake I did and believed that they expired the next day. I tried them with both the pâté and cream cheese - both were delicious.
 

Now if only I understood mortgages. Not that I think I'll need to any time soon.
 

Evening news browsing... >_>
 

And as mentioned a moment ago, a very tasty one. It was a big packet though so there was plenty left for lunch the following day. Actually, I still haven't finished the packet...
 

Again, I think I ended up putting far more context into my replies than a real Twitter user would have.
 

It's a silly limitation anyway.
 

Hooray, a reply that relies on two other messages to make sense. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this speshul new method of communication now.
 

The third drink I've "tweeted" about today. Now this is what microblogging is all about!
 

The urge was satisfied a few moments later. Weapon Master Mode is proving quite fun.
 

A thought prompted by a comment in IRC. Apparently I don't, although I still have my doubts.
 

Still waiting. :/
 

Nearly there. One day of this was quite enough.
 

So, there we go. Now you hopefully have a better idea of what I was babbling on about. Assuming you cared.

The first thing I noticed was that microblogging was exhausting. For me, at least. I imagine that there are probably people out there who would enjoy sharing every inane moment of their day with others, but I am not one of those people. Those of a fnar mentality will probably best understand if I say it had the same kind of draining effect as being in a social situation. Not as bad, but still a very similar feeling.

I was hoping to highlight a few of the things that bug me most about Twitter, but I don't think I managed to submit any good examples. I don't think I'm a Twitter natural.

If I had to pick one issue to rant about, it would be that the social value of microblogging is close to nil because the "tweets" are generally meaningless on their own. Imagine someone copying a sentence from an encyclopaedia article, sending it to you, and then expecting you to extrapolate the rest of the article from that sentence. That is how the majority of Twitter posts seem to me. Devoid of context and meaning to all but the Twitter user.

Even to those who do know what's going on, the value of recording information in this way seems questionable. Assume that the Twitter user is happy to use his or her account to note daily events in a manner similar to a diary. Unlike a conventional blog, the style and brevity of "tweets" forces users to strip away important information leaving a now-meaningless core of words. Weeks after the event, when the details have long been forgotten, the post will have as much meaning to the poster as anyone else who comes across it.

The worst offenders are the "tweets" that reply to others. Generally prefixed with @name, these posts are doubly worthless since not only are they devoid of surrounding context, the few words they do contain depend upon words hidden away somewhere else to make any sense. Unlike a forum where one can follow a conversation as it develops, Twitter breaks down conversations into brief one-sided chunks. I can't describe how depressed a stand-alone post like "@Daniel He did, just not to me. Did you get them?" makes me feel. I expect even Daniel is depressed by it, even though it might make a little more sense to him.

Others have pointed out many issues they have with Twitter. Celebrity followers would be one - those who exist in a strange fantasy where they follow their celebrity's "tweets", reply with their own, and feel that they are in some way forming a two-way connection. I suppose it's very much like traditional idol worship, although it seems more widespread. To me though, the scariest thing about it is that people, believing that it is an effective tool for social contact, are using it as a substitute for the real thing. In trying to enrich the social aspects of their lives, they end up ruining that which they hope to improve. The same complaint could be targeted at other social networking services, but Twitter is an easy example to use because all of the things it does wrong it does to such obvious extremes.

Bashing social networking appears to be a popular pastime at the moment. In the past couple of weeks, a number of high profile individuals including David Cameron and an archbishop have looked down on it; the latter seems to have picked up on many of the social issues surrounding this new style of communicating with others.

I'll leave it there as I have quite a lot that I want to do before getting to bed and it's already late; plus I think I've said most of the things I wanted to say. Thanks again to Yuri and Kiri for being good sports and playing along last week.

I didn't do very much yesterday. A little pottering and cleaning, but mostly dozing. I didn't seem to wake up all day, despite spending the entire morning in bed. The result of a rather busy week, I suppose.

Still, I woke up a little earlier today so hopefully I can get a few more things done. This will be my last free weekend for a while as family commitments have claimed the next three.

I've been tweaking things on the site so as always let me know if you spot things that appear wrong. I fixed two outstanding bugs in the hastily thrown together comment system, one highlighted by w0lfeh months ago, the other by the random spammer last week. I've also added another comment filter which should block similar unwanted messages in the future.

Time for SCIENCE! It's fair to say that I'm not a fan of the more recent social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook since I believe that they serve to complicate and devalue communication rather than aid it. I also don't like a lot of the things they stand for.

I thought I'd try a little experiment though and, for one day, "tweet" in the same manner as most Twitter fans do during their waking hours. Throughout the day, I will add short updates of 140 characters or less to the bottom of this post, for the most part devoid of context and meaning. I will then revisit this post in a week or two so that I can look back and try to decide whether my "tweets" were socially beneficial to myself and others or, as I suspect, were an entirely pointless endeavour.

I'm not really doing this for any particular reason. I have nothing to prove to myself since I already have a firm belief that Twitter is a poor social tool. I am a little interested to know exactly how much sense my comments will make a week from now though.

If anyone happens to be following along, feel free to participate in this random experiment and add a comment - I shall do my best to "tweet" a reply. Bonus points awarded to comments of 140 characters or less.
 

 
An interesting experience. My thanks to those who participated. I shall leave this here and come back to it next week.

THANK YOU, W0lfeh, for bringing this to my attention. \o/ It's a sad reminder that I don't have much time to regularly spend catching up on game news that a release like this managed to sneak by me. Not only is Fat Princess due out tomorrow but Puyo Puyo 7 too!

I've had a quick skim through the Puyo Puyo 7 website to see what the new game has to offer. It looks as if there will be a few changes to the character line-up with more Madou Monogatari characters than have appeared in a Puyo Puyo game since Yon. Several of the characters made a return for Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary after taking a break for Fever, but it looks as if most of the main cast is back this time around. The core gang of Arle, Satan, Schezo and Rulue are all back together. And, for the first time in ages, Draco! A few of the classic secondary characters are back too, including the iconic Suketoudara and Skeleton T. However, Zou, who was brought back for 15th Anniversary, appears to have vanished again. :(

I wonder if they'll ever make a new Madou Monogatari game. I'm sure it would sell well given that Puyo Puyo remains quite popular in Japan, and they have enough new characters in the series now to allow them to do something fresh and vibrant. A kind of Madou Monogatari Fever, if you will. There are probably some licensing complications with old Compile IP though.

As with all new Puyo Puyo games, there have been a few rule changes. Seven's featured mode is Daihenshin, which appears to be an unnatural cross between Fever mode and 15th Anniversary's DekaPuyo mode and a ChibiPuyo mode I haven't seen before. I'm not sure quite how well it plays. It doesn't seem much like a major rule change in the way that Fever was.

It's coming out on the DS tomorrow and PSP/Wii later in the year, so I don't have anything to play it on at present. Although that's not really an issue as I expect it will take its sweet time making its way over to the UK. Assuming it ever does. The networking features like 8-player online play look fun though. Maybe I should think about upgrading my ageing GBA SP next year.

Oh, and be sure to check out ぷよぷよのうた too. :)

ばよえ～ん～～～☆

After a series of production delays, Fat Princess will be bursting (eww, horrible image) onto the PlayStation Store tomorrow - to the delight of many PS3 owners, I'm sure. The game looks like good fun and no one can deny that the concept is a little different. If I had a PS3, it's one I suspect I would snap up.

Last week, I mentioned a self-indulgent post I had wanted to make on the Moon shots of the 1960s and early 70s. It's a little later than planned, but here it is.

40 years ago this month, humans first set foot on the orbiting ball of rock we call the Moon, a moment that will be remembered as one of the defining moments of the 20th century. But four decades on, just how historically important are the Moon landings? How might things be different today if we hadn't gone to the Moon? The media have been pumping out countless articles, TV documentaries, etc. that look back on those events in a modern day context. I've been following some of them, and while most are feel-good fluff, a few made some very interesting observations. I thought I'd touch on a small selection of the latter here with a few of my own thoughts thrown into the mix.

Even if I didn't have an interest in space exploration and therefore in the space program directly, the person I am today would still have been in part shaped by the events of 40 years ago. The space race gripped the world and turned a decade of depression (Vietnam, assassinations, crime waves) into something inspiring. It was about hope, vision, exploration, humanity and a dozen other buzzwords that the people at the top of NASA still liberally scatter about their sentences when trying to secure funding from the government. Without the Moon shots, science fiction would have remained a niche interest for the few who were open to it, rather than being the popular fiction genre it is today. Star Trek, which originally ran from 1966 (the year which saw the first launch of the Apollo program, Apollo 2) to 1969 (Apollo 11 on the Moon), harnessed the popular interest in Space at the time. Gene Roddenberry would almost certainly never have had his idea and had it accepted by a TV studio had it not been for the Apollo program. I don't think it had as much impact on my life as some people claim it had on theirs, but I'm quite certain that Star Trek played some role in shaping my thoughts as I was growing up and in my interests and the way I think today. So that's one indirect influence of the Apollo program on me.

Even to those with no interest in space and science fiction, the "drive" of the space program still resonates today. True, in many ways, it was ultimately a disappointment; the space program faded away due to a lack of funding and public interest. The flying cars and space habitats that were promised in the 60s failed to materialise, but the dreams of something better and what can be achieved through determination and effort survive; they have surely influenced a great many ventures and individuals over the past 40 years and will continue to do so for some time.

Of the flights that took place during the Apollo program, the two most socially influential were probably those of Apollo 8 and Apollo 11. A short television broadcast during Apollo 8's journey around the Moon probably had more impact on the people of the Earth than the Moon landing itself and possibly the rest of the space program combined. On Christmas Eve in 1968, around a quarter of the world's population tuned in to watch a live broadcast from the only humans ever to have left the safety of Earth's orbit. Timed to coincide with a lunar sunrise, the three crew members performed an impromptu recital of the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis followed by a personal message. Viewers also saw a small, grey (for the TV cameras were black and white) sphere slowly rising above the Moon's horizon. One can only imagine what those families gathered together in their homes, seeing their planet for the first time as a tiny ball suspended in the vast blackness of space, the haunting words echoing in the background, felt during those moments. I suspect it would have been hard not to be moved, regardless of religious alignment. To me, the often-neglected social and emotional impact of the space program is just as much a part of its legacy as the technological feats and the fact that they did what they did.

Of course, one should not forget the other side of the space program. While it will be remembered for its achievements, for "furthering humanity" and all of the nonsense buzzwords I mentioned earlier, the space program was a purely political endeavour. When fully broken down, the space race was just a plain old wang-size contest where, to embrace the analogy far more than I should, the USA and USSR spent vast sums of money on erecting giant steel phallic constructions and thrusting them deep into outer space. The cold war was well underway and both sides were keen to demonstrate their superiority. Space exploration was of interest to both sides; not only would it boost morale and be a chance to show off to the world, but military control of space would give one side a major tactical advantage over the other. The USSR took an early lead with the launch of Sputnik and, by the time of Kennedy's Moon shot announcement in 1961, the USA was still barely able to compete. The bold goal set by the USA helped it steal a little global interest from the USSR's achievements, but it would be late in the decade before the USA surpassed the USSR technologically.

One of the more interesting hypothetical questions to ask is what would have happened if the space race hadn't taken place - if neither side had shown an interest in space or if one had opted not to compete with the other. Now that some time has passed since those events and previously concealed information held by both sides has been made public, historians have been able to get a much clearer look at what was going on at the time. One very real possibility is that if the space race had not happened, much of the Earth's surface today would be irradiated and cratered. Were it not for the harmless competition of the space race, one side may have eventually decided to prove its superiority by engaging in open conflict with the other. Conflict that would have made the second world war look like a minor border dispute. Considering how close to war both sides came, it's not hard to imagine the second half of the 20th century turning out very differently.

As it happened, this "competition" in space didn't just potentially diffuse open warfare but also led to the first peaceful cooperation between both sides since the cold war began.

I'm sure I could ramble for a while longer, but I'll spare you the pain. ^^ Instead, I shall leave you with this YouTube video of a photo taken by Bill Anders on Apollo 8, as well as some recent footage of an Earthrise and Earthset taken by JAXA's lunar orbiter, Kaguya, that was retired last month.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the day that man first set foot on the surface of another world. I had hoped to write a little bit about this rather significant historic event but I haven't managed to find the time. Maybe later this week.

I went to see Waiting for Godot on Saturday, currently running in the West End and starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I knew from the outset it was going to be a little different and on that front it certainly didn't disappoint. I may have somewhat unfairly compared it to a Yorkshire-based British sitcom that generally features a small group of old men who stand around, idling their time away, waiting for something to happen. The truth is, I quite enjoyed it - much more than I thought I would going in. It managed to keep my attention for the duration which I wasn't expecting it to.

It is left largely to the audience to interpret the meaning of the play. I'm sure I'm going to get another look of disapproval for this (^^) but in many ways it reminded me of Haibane Renmei, the TV animation based on concepts by Yoshitoshi Abe. Both present the audience with a world where people are waiting, but aren't sure for what/whom, and in fact have little idea about where they are or how they got there. I also find it curious that the popular interpretation for both is a religious one: Waiting for Godot is sometimes considered to be a story of two men nearing the end of their lives, waiting for death. They are waiting for God(ot) to save them and lead them to something better, but their lives drag on with no end in sight. The popular interpretation of Haibane Renmei is as a representation of Purgatory, the walled city lying somewhere between the world of the living and the world of those who have passed on. The faint memories of the Haibane and the views of the representitives of the Haibane Renmei (which seem to borrow from Catholic concepts) give this argument some credit. However, both Samuel Beckett and Yoshitoshi Abe deny that their message was supposed to be a religious one. There are plenty of interpretations for both, but ultimately it's up to the viewer to decide what the spectacle meant. In the case of Godot, I'm not sure I've decided yet.

A couple of interesting sights around London on Saturday:

In Trafalgar Square, the One & Other art installation was in full swing. For those unaware, the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is currently empty. Rather than install another statue or static work of art, the Powers That Be commissioned an unusual art project which sees a different person stand on the plinth for a period of one hour, every hour of every day over the summer. When we passed, the plinth was home to this jolly Scotsman.

We also spotted this on the south bank of the Thames:

...which had us a little puzzled until we came across this:

All in all, an unusual day.

Since I'm not creative enough to come up with many original, blogworthy topics, I shall borrow this one from a friend.

A little context for anyone reading this who hasn't been following along: New Covent Garden Food Co., a UK producer of hearty, fresh soups, have released a new Soup of the Month. They do this every so often - I would say every month, but their idea of what a month is seems to be very different to mine. Anyway, irrespective of the frequency, this ingenious scheme allows them to strengthen their brand and experiment with new products without disturbing established product lines. This "month", NCG are promoting their unusual-sounding Summer Pea & Lettuce recipe. There's something rather odd about it though.

When the SotM (not a new Castlevania game) page for Summer Pea & Lettuce went live, it did so with pleasant images of the soup and carton, along with a paragraph promising delicious summery flavours. Oddly though, for a lettuce soup, the ingredients listed on the page did not contain lettuce. Note that both pea and leek are major ingredients though; their importance will become clear in just a moment.

The soup that appeared on supermarket shelves at around the same time, replacing the previous Minestrone Verde, was the curiously similar Pea & Leek Chowder. Now one might assume that this was a case of NCG's marketing department getting their wires crossed, but note that the ingredients in Pea & Leek Chowder do not match up with the lettuce-less list of ingredients for the Summer Pea & Lettuce recipe on the website.

Further investigation provided answers to a few questions but also raised others. On a trip to Sainsbury's yesterday, I spotted the elusive Summer Pea & Lettuce sitting on the shelf next to Pea & Leek Chowder, both claiming to be the current Soup of the Month. That in itself isn't too unusual. Supermarkets often clear out last month's stock with this month's, leading to two Soups of the Month on sale at the same time. However, from what I can ascertain, Minestrone Verde was last month's Soup of the Month, replaced this month with Summer Pea & Lettuce. So where did the Pea & Leek Chowder come from? Also, why does the list of ingredients for Summer Pea & Lettuce still not match up to the recipe on the website, which reads more like a combination of the two soups?

One mystery has now been solved, that of the difference between the list of ingredients for Summer Pea & Lettuce soup on the website and on the back of the carton. It would appear that a simple copywriting error led to lettuce being omitted from the list of ingredients on the website. NCG have updated the SotM page so that the ingredients listed there now match the carton.

So, it would appear that Summer Pea & Lettuce is in fact the rightful Soup of the Month. That only leaves the question of where the Pea & Leek Chowder came from. Was it a pretender to the SotM throne? There are some questions to which we may never know the answer...

I picked up a new mouse for work a few months ago after my previous mouse, an early Microsoft wireless mouse, suffered a fatal fall from my desk one day. It wasn't a fantastic mouse, to be honest. It was one of the first with those "clickless" or smooth-scrolling scroll wheels, something I was never too sure about to begin with and quickly grew to despise as it made middle-clicking next to impossible - hence the reason it ended up at work where I rarely needed to middle-click on things. It has served me well over the last 5 years though, so I was sad to see it go.

When looking for a replacement, I drew up a list of requirements and "would be nice"s. I'd grown used to wireless, so even though it wasn't an essential, must-have feature, I was leaning towards wireless for the replacement too. I'm not sure about those rechargeable mice with docking stations, since they rely on the user remembering to dock the mouse at the end of the day. My Microsoft mouse took a pair of AA cells that kept it running for about a year. I kept a spare pair in the drawer, but the "low battery" pop-up gave around a month's notice which would have been plenty of time to source some more if I'd run out. I know some people who hate the concept of wireless mice running off replaceable batteries, but to me, spending thirty seconds each year swapping out dead cells for new ones and having the mouse "just work" for the rest of the year seems much less fuss than having to remember to charge the mouse weekly or daily and having to replace the whole mouse when the non-user-serviceable battery finally expires.

Another requirement was "no stupid buttons". Manufacturers these days appear to be in a competition to see how many buttons they can cram into a mouse, leading to devices that are close to unusable since you can't point, click and do other mousey things without accidentally hitting a random button which closes your application or turns off your computer. Why do mice need these buttons? Surely they don't save time if you have so many buttons that you have to look up what they all do before you can click one. Comfort, too, was essential, although most mice these days are a vast improvement over the square bricks of the past.

I eventually settled on the Logitech MX620, in part because Amazon had a half price offer on at the time. Again, it's not a perfect mouse, but I've been quite happy with it over the past few months. I wasn't sure about the three extra random buttons, but they are located out of the way and can be disabled quite easily.

The other week, the even older 1997 Microsoft Intellimouse that I use at home started to show its age and refused to scroll properly. Since I was quite happy with my mouse at work and had very similar requirements for home, getting another was the obvious choice, especially since Amazon were selling it at half price again. Sadly the mouse that arrived was defective - the middle button didn't work - so back it went. Amazon was quite helpful though and had another shipped out the following day. I'm breaking the new one in now and it seems to be working fine, everything clicking as it's supposed to. Even those three random buttons have proved to be quite useful. The buttons can all be remapped to various things, so I have made the up/down buttons on the side a volume control - very handy as a headphone-user when running a game in full-screen where on-screen volume controls may not be readily accessible.

I did encounter one oddity when trying to set up my replacement home mouse though, my only real gripe with the device so far. Being wireless, the mouse and RF receiver need to be paired before use. This seemed to happen automagically the first time, but when setting up the replacement mouse, perhaps because I had installed the same mouse and software previously, I had to perform the pairing manually. In other wireless devices, including the old Microsoft wireless mouse I had at work, pairing was performed through a "synchronisation" button on the receiver and the device. My Logitech mouse doesn't have a dedicated button though. Instead, the sadistic engineers at Logitech devised the following hand ballet for pairing new mice to their receivers:

Oh yes, and just in case that wasn't enough of a challenge, you have thirty seconds to read all of the above and then perform the steps on your mouse before the pairing application closes. Is all that really necessary? Obviously you don't want pairing to be triggered by two buttons you're likely to depress together in everyday use, but the current routine feels like overkill.

I'm not looking forward to the next version that incorporates two full forward scrolls of the scroll wheel followed by half a scroll backwards to add an exotic flourish at the end.

The original Sony Walkman is apparently 30 years old this week. The (admittedly low-key) media coverage of the subject reminded me of something I was going to talk about a month or two ago but for some reason never did. No time like the present.

Portable devices that can reproduce music from a recording certainly aren't new. Portable Gramophones, reel-to-reel tape decks and 8-track players have allowed the travelling public to take their music with them for the past century. The last in this line of portable playback devices suitable for public listening was the ghetto blaster (or boombox to some). Often loud and not particularly refined, this product of the 70s and 80s accompanied families on outings and turned street corners into miniature discos.

However, the 80s saw a transition from portable music players to personal ones - the personal stereo was born. Instead of the thump of the ghetto blaster, public spaces were filled with faint, tinny noises emanating from the headphones of teenagers. The "personal" trend stuck as technology progressed through CDs and digital audio players, via Minidisc and a number of other forgotten technologies that never really took off.

If you're wondering where I'm going with this, stay with me; we're almost there. Recently, the mobile phone has taken over as the portable music device of choice among the nation's youth. Notice that I said portable there, not personal. One odd side-effect of music playback transitioning to the mobile phone, a small device usually equipped with a speaker or two, is that listeners appear to have given up on personal headsets, opting instead to listen to their music on the device's internal speaker(s).

Now maybe I'm finally reaching the age where everything the youth of today does seems weird and alien, but this behaviour is completely baffling to me. The quality of the audio produced by these tiny, tinny speakers doesn't come anywhere near the quality of even the cheapest headphones, earbuds, etc. For youths in a group, I can perhaps see the appeal; it's the ghetto blaster of today, a social music device that everyone can enjoy... even though it sounds terrible. But I see people walking on their own with their phone screeching away in their pocket. They must know there's a better way. In fact I'll wager nearly all of them were quite familiar with headphones at an earlier point in their lives. So what made them switch to something that produces vastly inferior sound and annoys everyone within 20 metres to boot? I must be missing something...

</minirant>

A little more awake today, although the heat is doing its best to undo my weekend of rejuvenation. Apparently it's only going to get warmer as the week goes on. :(

This was my first quiet weekend in a while so I've been making the most of it by doing as little as possible. Sleep was the first thing I set my sights on. I've been quite tired for a while now, but I really struggled this last week; more than once I had a hard time concentrating at work or staying awake when I got home in the evenings. I blame most of that on the lack of sleep I had the previous weekend. Anyway, today I caught up on at least a little of the sleep I missed out on. I think I stayed in bed until about noon, alternating between sleeping and dozing. It felt nice knowing that I didn't have to be anywhere or do anything. I don't think I've fully recovered yet, but I'm getting there.

I popped to town in the afternoon. I saw a rat on the way in, although it was gone in a flash, long before I could reach for my camera. I know they're not held in particularly high regard and one nip would probably have cost me a week in the hospital, but they are rather cute up close.

My mission in town was (as well as some boring household stuff) to look for a copy of Okami and Soul Calibur 2/3. My sister lent me her PlayStation 2 last weekend - an extended loan until she gets bored of her Wii (so maybe not all that long) - so I've been looking for a few games for it. I borrowed PuyoPuyo Fever and retrieved the copy of Final Fantasy XII I bought when I came out of hospital a year or two ago (25% through and I can't remember what happened, so I may well restart it) but I wanted to get my hands on a couple of other titles. Sadly, Okami seems to have become quite rare, as despite having access to a Gamestation, two Game stores and a CEX, I couldn't find a copy anywhere. CEX had a copy of SC3 but at a rather high price. I meant to look for a copy of ICO too, but forgot about it until I got back home. I didn't leave empty handed though; I picked up a pre-owned copy of Gran Turismo 3 for the quite affordable price of £2. Something to pass the time if I don't feel up to gaming that's particularly mentally challenging. ^^;

I've also eaten quite well today (too well perhaps *rolls around*) and spent a pleasant evening cooking in the kitchen - something I haven't had a chance to do properly in quite a while. It all turned out very well and I even baked myself a crumble for desert, using some half-price raspberries I picked up in town, which went very nicely with the ice cream I bought yesterday. Taking into account my meals, a couple of apples, and an orange & strawberry juice I had in town (very nice), I think I've had at least ten of my five-a-day. Hopefully that will make up for a lack of fresh fruit and veg earlier in the week.

It's been very hot here all day, even during a brief shower this afternoon. To stop myself from falling asleep in the warm air after eating, I continued the rat theme and watched Ratatouille, a recent Pixar title I hadn't seen (I now only have Cars to watch) but which my sister bought me for Christmas. Given my track record with Pixar films, I expected to find it pleasantly enjoyable and I wasn't disappointed. (Note to self: must see Up this summer)

Anyway, it's finally cooling down a little now - my thermometer is reading 24°C and I can feel the cool night air blowing gently through my window. I wonder what it is about night air that gives it that lovely refreshing, cool, clean smell? A lower temperature, maybe. Or fewer contaminants. Perhaps I'll ask Google tomorrow if it knows the answer. Before then though, I have another long night of sleep to enjoy.

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the cinema not once but thrice. First to see J. J. Abrams' "reboot" of the Star Trek franchise and then again to watch the stop-motion animated feature based on Neil Gaiman's Coraline. And then finally to watch Star Trek a second time as my sister had no one else to go with. Rather than allow my swirling thoughts to dissipate, I thought I'd put them here so that I can look back on them and perhaps share them with the few who might be interested in reading them.

I'm afraid that this post took a little longer to write than I had originally planned, but then I was thinking of something a little shorter and not this 20K wall of text. Anyway, as a result of writing this post a little bit at a time over the course of several days, it might not flow particularly well — so my apologies if things don't seem to make sense. If you point out anything you find confusing in the comments, I'll do my best to correct the problematic text and explain what I was trying to say.

Before we begin, you should pay close attention to the following important notice...
 
 

 
 
Star Trek

Since it's a little fresher in my mind, let's begin with Star Trek. The eleventh film in the series is directed by J. J. Abrams, the man behind Lost and lots of other popular things I've never watched.

I've been a fan of Star Trek to a greater or lesser extent for as long as I can remember. When the new film was announced and promised to bring something new and fresh to the franchise, I was excited and at the same time worried. While I have still yet to see Nemesis, I am aware of how poorly it was received — the consensus, among both fans and non-fans, seemed to be that the series was getting old and had lost the spark it once had. Starting over with the aforementioned "fresh" elements therefore seemed like a good idea, but change is always difficult when you're used to the way things are. This is especially true of a series like Star Trek with over 40 years of established history.

Going into the cinema to view the film, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I'd taken great care to expose myself to as little information as possible — in the weeks leading up to the release, I tried my best to avoid all spoilers, reviews and comments. This wasn't always possible; popular media outlets such as the BBC covered the film quite extensively and mentioned generally favourable reviews, but I managed to resist the urge to delve too deeply into the articles. From the early interviews and previews, I was aware of a few basic facts — that the series was going to be a fresh look at the early days of the ToS crew — but otherwise I really had no idea what it was going to be about.

Before I get started on the details, a quick summary of the plot would seem to be in order. The story begins in the established Star Trek universe, a decade or so after DS9/Voyager. Hobus, a massive star in close proximity to the Romulan home world, is growing increasingly unstable. Scientists fear it may explode, destroying Romulus and threatening other nearby systems, and methods for preventing disaster are sought. The Vulcan Science Academy engineers a substance capable of making a gravitational singularity and a plan is soon hatched to create a black hole near the unstable star in order to absorb it. Unfortunately, the ship en route to Hobus, piloted by Ambassador Spock, does not reach the Hobus system in time; the star goes supernova, destroying Romulus. While in the process of creating the singularity, Spock is approached by a surviving Romulan mining vessel, the commander of which blames Spock for the destruction of his home. Unable to escape the pull of the forming singularity, the two ships are absorbed along with the matter from the star.

The intense gravitational forces result in a time distortion, throwing both vessels over 100 years into the past. Intent on revenge, the captain of the mining vessel, Nero, resumes his hunt for Spock, wreaking havoc with the past and influencing the lives of a young Kirk and Spock. With a little help from a rather familiar crew and the older Spock, the two must stop Nero before he can put his plan — to give the Romulan Empire an advantage in this timeline by destroying the worlds of the Federation — into action.

Soooo, let's start with the whole alternate timeline thing. I will admit that when the story became clear, I initially saw it as a great big cop-out (the science fiction equivalent of "it was all a dream"). In retrospect, however, it was really the ideal plot device to satisfy everyone. The fans are happy because it doesn't disturb canon and allows them to experience something new and exciting yet also familiar. The production team are happy because it gives them the freedom to construct this new universe without being too constrained.

Despite the obvious effort taken to leave established canon alone, there were still a number of not-insignificant changes to the original timeline (apparently now referred to as the "prime" timeline in fan circles, so I shall adopt that convention in this post). Historically, major events taking place in Star Trek have made use of the planet-of-the-week plot device, free to be terrorised or destroyed as the story requires. This is the first time I can recall that writers have destroyed a major world in the Star Trek universe. Of the major planets that could have been destroyed, Romulus probably has the least impact due in part to the Romulans being one of the less prominent species in Star Trek stories (at least in the later ones — they started off as one of the Big Three alien races along with Vulcans and Klingons, but apparently fell out of fashion after TNG) and also because Remus provides the surviving Romulans with a backup planet of sorts (assuming it wasn't destroyed as well). Even so, it will be interesting to see how things develop should stories in the "prime" timeline continue.

The "death" of Spock (i.e. his removal from the timeline) was another event of some significance. It was a sensible time for him to exit the original timeline — he's arguably been around longer than any other character in the series and he had effectively retired as a character. I'm sure removing him from the "prime" timeline while allowing him to continue his humanitarian (vulcanitarian?) work somewhere else will satisfy most fans.

The alternate timeline didn't escape unscathed either. (Rather obviously, otherwise it wouldn't be very alternate.) Again, Vulcan, while being a major world in Star Trek lore (a founding member of the Federation, etc.) was effectively a fringe world for most of the series. However, it remains to be seen whether a Federation without the guidance of Vulcan will develop differently in this timeline.

So, those are the major in-universe events. What about changes to established canon in the film itself? Well, I'll start with the Romulans. Apparently it's not just the Klingons who can get forehead adjustments these days; the Romulans in the new film look very different from their traditional counterparts. These are "prime" Romulans so it's not something that can be dismissed as an alternate timeline thing. Maybe, since these Romulans are supposed to be miners, the designers thought that getting them to swap their hair for tattoos would make them seem more rugged and "hard".

The other noticeable case of retcon is the design of the Federation ships and technology. Until now, the franchise has left original series technology mostly intact when revisiting it in later series. In the latest film outing, the classic switches and dials have all been replaced with shiny, touch-sensitive display panels in whitewashed environments lit so brightly that it's a wonder eye protection isn't required. While not quite true to the TV series, to be honest the new, shiny technology probably looked less out of place on the big screen than the retro technology of the original series would have. Most of the other changes to things we're used to can be explained away as the result of historical differences in the alternate timeline.

The characters were an interesting bunch. I thought McCoy was probably the most authentic — the actor who played him (sorry, I don't know any of the names of the stars of the new film yet >_>;) captured the character of DeForrest Kelly's Bones very well. I wasn't too sure when I first saw him on screen, but I quickly warmed to him when he started talking. The portrayal of Spock was reasonably well done. The way he reacted did at times remind me quite a lot of the younger, original series Spock — a little arrogant with brief flashes of suppressed emotion. There will never be another Nimoy, but the new actor had a pretty good stab at the role.

Speaking of Nimoy, he portrayed an older Spock from the "prime" timeline. I had heard he would be enjoying a small appearance in the film, but it turned out to be a much larger role and one quite central to the plot. Someone commented that they felt Nimoy's lines were delivered with a lack of enthusiasm, as if he'd said them dozens of times before and was tired of saying them — but I disagree. The Spock character evolved throughout the films that followed the original series and developed a more mature, wise, introspective personality. I thought his delivery was spot on, a perfect performance of the Spock we've come to know in the later movies and guest appearances in TNG. This is most likely the last time Nimoy's Spock will make an on-screen appearance and I thought it was a worthy send-off.

Kirk was a little annoying. Since the Kirk in this universe had experienced a troubled childhood and lacked discipline and guidance while growing up, the more annoying Kirk traits were a dozen times more pronounced then in the Kirk of the "prime" universe. Part of me wanted to see him fail and watch his confidence take a bruising. I suppose it was probably a reasonably accurate portrayal of a Kirk with the history this one had.

I don't have much to say about Chekov and Sulu. They both played their roles well enough and provided a few moments of light-hearted humour. Scotty seemed a little weak and was late to the party, but again the differences between him and the Scotty we know could be attributed to an alternate history.

Uhura is a rather complicated one. When we first see her buying drinks at the bar, she's very much Uhura. When we see her working or brushing off Kirk, again she's the Uhura we've come to know. But the Uhura seemingly offering her body to Spock in the turbolift was definitely something I hadn't seen before. The first time I saw this scene, which takes place just after Spock witnesses the tragic fate of his planet and his mother (you did heed that spoiler warning, didn't you?), I was taken aback somewhat. I didn't see any lead-up to it and it just seemed rather out of character. When I went to watch the film a second time, I paid special attention to the relationship between Uhura and Spock and, having picked up on a few things I missed the first time around, came away happier with the events than I had before.

The key thing I didn't pick up on the first time around was that Spock and Uhura were already quite close. Oblivious to the signs on my first viewing (I'd seen them all but written them off as Uhura being assertive or Spock uneasily interacting with humans), the first time I noticed the relationship between the two characters was the turbolift scene. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly here was Uhura draped over Spock, apparently exhibiting a high degree of emotional attachment to him. On my second viewing, now that I knew what I was looking for, I managed to pick up on the relationship between the two characters long before that particular scene.

It is established early on that they have at the very least a good student-teacher relationship, but it's the scene in the hangar at Starfleet HQ that first hints at something more. There is a brief exchange between Uhura and Spock where Uhura complains to Spock, who is in charge of assignments, that she didn't get the assignment he knew she wanted. He replied that he didn't want to be seen to be showing favouritism. The tone in Spock's voice almost seems to imply that it is understood by both that he does indeed consider her to be a favourite though, as does Uhura's indignant reaction upon discovering which ship she has been assigned to. The situation is resolved when Uhura demands that Spock assign her to the Enterprise and Spock complies without a fight — again rather unusual for a typical student-teacher relationship. It does seem to suggest that they are friends, although it is unclear exactly how close they were before the events aboard the Enterprise. Anyway, now that I am more aware of Uhura and Spock's background, the turbolift scene and those that follow make much more sense.

I suppose it wouldn't have been original series Star Trek if none of the characters had had a love interest. Although intra-ship relationships in ToS were rare, and when they did happen you knew that the character (who coincidentally had never appeared before) would be dead by the end of the episode.

The story itself was reasonable, but there were still quite a few things that bothered me. Why was Nero bent on seeking revenge, for example? Revenge for what? Because Spock had been unsuccessful in preventing the destruction of Romulus, an event which presumably would have occurred with or without his participation in it? The only way I can see that Nero's grudge would be valid would be if the Vulcan Science Academy had advised the Romulans not to work on a solution of their own since the Vulcans would handle the situation. I can't see the Romulans going along with that idea though. An alternative theory is that Nero is just a bit odd in the head, which is quite feasible given that he's just lost his home, family and planet. I read some production notes recently that indicated that a number of Nero's scenes were cut; perhaps if they come to light, his motivation will become clearer.

The rapid career advancement of some of the cadets was another thing that confused me a little. Pike's choice of Spock and Kirk for first officer seemed a bit odd. Spock perhaps — on a crew of mostly cadets, he was probably the most qualified. But Kirk? The arrogant command student with no experience who had been suspended and gained passage on the Enterprise by illegally stowing aboard? Was there really no one else aboard better qualified? Pike did seem rather taken with Kirk since their encounter in the bar, probably due largely to Kirk's father — that's about the only explanation I can think of. I originally objected to Kirk's assignment to the Enterprise as her captain at the end of the film too, since it's rather strange for someone to leap out of the academy and straight into the big chair. I'll accept that saving Earth is probably enough to earn such a promotion though. >_>

There were a number of other things I wasn't so sure about on a technical level either. The Romulan ship, for a start. As the evil, enemy vessel, it works well enough visually. But it's just about the least practical mining vessel I've ever seen. Why the dark spikes? What possible purpose do they serve other than to look menacing? Is it supposed to intimidate asteroids into giving up their ores?

The supernova event too was a little oddly done. The star expelled a sphere of matter that reached as far as Romulus before Spock could interfere. Yet somehow Spock was still able to get close enough to the star to create a singularity that could capture all of the matter — how does that work?

The film was intended to be fun first and foremost, and on that level it definitely succeeds. I wouldn't call it a popcorn movie, but it is heavy on the action. At the same time though, I think it manages to retain the Star Trek feel. It's a fresh take on an old franchise that seems to have been largely popular with both fans and newcomers. Word from Paramount is that we could be seeing at least one more film set in this new universe, but whether it will become the focus of Star Trek in the long term (assuming the franchise continues) remains to be seen. The success of this movie is certainly promising though and gives me hope that Star Trek will be with us for a while yet.

Even taking into account the issues I have covered above, I quite enjoyed the film. I look forward to seeing where the series goes from here. Everything is familiar, yet at the same time the future of this new universe is completely unknown. Exciting times!

This one grabbed my attention when I first saw the trailer. Based on a children's book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is a stop-motion animation directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas). Thanks to Selick's involvement, at times it feels rather Burtonesque, despite Tim Burton having nothing to do with the project.

It tells the tale of Coraline, a girl who finds herself living in an large, old house in the middle of nowhere as a result of the demands of her parents' occupations. Far from the friends she had to leave behind, Coraline seeks ways to escape from the realities of life with her somewhat dysfunctional family and eccentric neighbours. While exploring the house from top to bottom, she happens upon a small door, long forgotten and wallpapered over. Initial excitement quickly turns to disappointment though when she discovers that the door appears to lead to nowhere.

At night however, the mysterious doorway transforms into a tunnel leading to another world; one that is a mirror of her own but where everything is "better". Her parents always have time for her and her eccentric neighbours entertain her. After escaping to the alternate world on a number of occasions, her "other" parents propose that she stays; after all, why return to her original world when everything there is worse? Although Coraline is at first interested by the idea, she soon discovers that all in the "other" world is not as it seems.

I felt Coraline was a nicely rounded fantasy film. A mixture of family strife, fantasy and darkness. If I had to level a criticism at it, I'd have to say that at times, it almost felt too rounded, lacking the slightly edgy feel we've come to expect from similar-looking films from the likes of the previously mentioned Mr. Burton. Enjoyment of the film probably depends on how each viewer relates to the protagonist. Despite a few annoying quirks, I found her easy enough to connect with. And she has a rather nice hat.

The character of Wybie was almost universally panned. An original character introduced for the film, Wybie's purpose was apparently to provide Coraline with someone to talk to so that she could convey the thoughts in her head to the audience without having to talk to herself all of the time — something that is of course easily done in print. I haven't read the book so I can't say how well the film's approach compares. I fear the book probably pulled it off better though. Wybie seems to be used to provide brief, silly distractions more often than he functions as Coraline's sounding board.

All things considered, I enjoyed the film. It was more of a popcorn surreal fantasy than anything intensely thought provoking, but it has a certain charm about it. The well-executed stop-motion animation and enchanting fantasy visuals probably play a large part in that. One I will almost certainly be picking up on DVD at some point.

I was visiting central London with my sister again on Saturday and we stopped off for another round of tea and neon muffins at Candy Cakes. I went for banana and toffee this time (the yellow one). My sister said the thing on top of hers was a chick, but I remain unconvinced.

Today I discovered that bees are really hard to photograph. I found a few dozen going about their business by the side of the road when I popped out for lunch today. Sadly, they move too fast, lingering on each flower for barely a second — and my phone camera takes about twice that long to focus in macro mode. So I had to anticipate the paths the bees would take between flowers and hope for the best. After a number of failures, I did manage to snap a couple of pictures with bees that weren't quite as blurry as the others.

Just a quick, random, disjointed update. Only three posts in May. That was a bit of a poor showing, although I did lose half a month to work I suppose. Still, I hope to improve upon that this month.

Summer is finally here and the weather is keen to remind me of that. It's been stiflingly hot in the warehouse this week. Unfortunately meteorologists are predicting an exceptionally hot summer so it's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Roll on the refreshing showers of autumn.

I think my hearing is getting worse. I watched the Star Trek movie again today and heard one or two things differently. Apparently Sulu wasn't engaged in fancy combat, he was fencing. Although I still think the former is closer to the truth. >_> Another incidence of hearing failure that came to my attention this week concerns the song Halo by Beyonce. (I had to look up both the song and the artist from the lyrics since they're outside my area of popular music knowledge.) It's been playing on the radio at work for a few months now, although due to the low volume and the rather terrible sound our radio emits I can only hear the chorus. Until yesterday I thought the lyrics were "Hello hello hello hello hello hello hello..." — it wasn't until I saw the title written down that it occurred to me that I had heard incorrectly. So the song isn't quite as silly and nonsensical as I originally thought it was. Although I still don't like it much.

Relatedly, I finally got around to re-checking the lyrics to Hikki's Poppin' and was disappointed to see that it was indeed bottles popping and not bodies. Oh well. The fun version still plays in my head whenever I hear it.

I was reading an article the other day on the various commercial tie-ins surrounding the latest Star Trek film. Most were what you would expect - toys, fast food meals, etc. But this one made me giggle — Star Trek fragrances.

The three fragrances are manufactured by a little-known company called GenkiWear. You can choose from:

    RED SHIRT Cologne — Because Tomorrow May Never Come
    TIBERIUS Cologne for Men — Boldy Go
    Pon Farr Perfume for Women — Leave Logic Behind

The product pages contain further details on each fragrance. For example, Red Shirt Cologne:

The product might stink but at least it looks like the copywriters had fun.

When they announced the arrival of a sleeper train at platform 6 at Victoria station, this wasn't what I was expecting.

Finally, my fortnight of "fun" has come to an end. Work has been mad for the past couple of weeks. Boss figured it would be a great idea to launch a new company while half of the people who would normally be involved in the process were on vacation, so what would have been a busy time anyway was turned into something quite insane when I had to juggle other people's jobs as well. Anyway, it's all over now (the holidaying people came back on Monday), so hopefully I'll have more time to do the things I want to again. Starting with this blog. I keep saying I want to write a few more "meaty" posts, so this month I'm going to make the time to get at least a couple out.

I spent most of the weekend sleeping, catching up the many hours in bed I missed out on when the office briefly took over my life. I ended up sleeping yesterday evening too, although I wasn't planning to - I was actually intending to post this then, but my body overruled me. I'm feeling quite a bit better now, although still very sleepy. ^^; I did re-listen to a CD I bought some weeks ago though, which brings me to the main subject of today's blog post.

I don't really follow popular music in this country, partly because some of the music is auditorily annoying or offensive and partly because the whole "scene" is wrapped up in the trashy celebrity culture that I despise. So I mostly try to ignore it. For this reason, I tend to miss out on a few things that I might otherwise have found interesting.

Virtual band Gorillaz was one of these things I missed out on the first time around. I remember seeing the music video for 19-2000 some time ago, presumably when it was first released, and I had heard a couple of other tracks (most likely on the radio in a car or at work) without really making the connection between them and the group. I was also vaguely aware of the concept of the band and its animated characters, but knew little else about them. All that changed a few weeks ago when I stumbled across the Gorillaz article on Wikipedia (I can't remember how I got there now). One thing led to another and before long I was exploring music videos on YouTube - and on the whole liking what I was hearing.

I approve of experimentation in music and film, even if I don't always enjoy the results. To me, Gorillaz seems like a fantastic concept in experimental music - a band fronted by a fixed group of animated characters for fans to focus on, a couple of individuals (Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett) who hold the whole thing together and provide the drive, and a great, big, open space where various artists, each with different talents, can collaborate to make something that normally they might be afraid to. A melting pot of ideas and genres. Like scientific experimentation, some things work and some things don't - that's the whole purpose. But there's always the chance you might discover something wonderful.

Anyway, after sampling some of the tracks on YouTube for a while, I decided to give one of their albums a try. Someone pointed out to me that one of the advantages of following popular music a couple of years behind everyone else (when it's not so popular) is that album prices are very reasonable. For under £5, Demon Days, the latest album, seemed very reasonably priced indeed. I've had it for a couple of weeks now, long enough to give it a few play-throughs, so I thought I'd offer a brief, track-by-track review. The album is quite mixed - some songs I like, some I don't - but on the whole I enjoyed it.

 
1 — Intro
It's... an intro. Not much else to say about it really. It's a little dingy.

2 — Last Living Souls
An interesting choice of track to begin the album with. It takes a little while to get going and for the first minute or so doesn't give the listener much reason to hope things will pick up. But they do and the track has quite a melodious middle section. Still, possibly not to everyone's taste.

3 — Kids with Guns
Demon Days was written and released at a time when much of the Western world was caught up in conflicts in the Middle East. Albarn's anti-war sentiments are quite well known and there is a theme running through many of the songs on this album. It's more noticeable in some songs than it is in others and this would definitely be a fine example of the former. It's the kind of song I normally wouldn't pay attention to, but it is admittedly well done. I found myself liking it more the more I listened to it.

4 — O Green World
Not too sure about this one. Again, it's a track I wouldn't normally like, but unlike the previous one it didn't really grow on me with repeat listens. Oh well, few albums are perfect.

5 — Dirty Harry
Hmm. This one is quite simple - a vocal solo joined by a children's choir over a short, repeating melody and beat, becoming a rap in the second half. There's actually not much to it at all, but it seems to work quite well. Probably not my favourite, but I found it quite listenable.

6 — Feel Good Inc.
One of the better-known tracks on this album, due to its success as a single. Explaining the details of the song and the accompanying music video is probably a task best left to the Wikipedia article. It has quite a polished feel when compared to some of the earlier tracks. It has a little of everything - song, a solid beat, rapping, acoustic instrumentals - and blends it all together very well. I'm not overly keen on rap, so I took some pleasure in the rappers, who I am reliably informed are a group called De La Soul, being cast as the "bad guys". :) I quite liked this one. It works especially well with the music video.

7 — El Mañana
A follow up (at least in spirit and according to the music video) to Feel Good Inc. This is definitely one of my favourite tracks on the album. The singing is quite dark and sombre, and blends well with the beat, acoustic guitar and simple strings. The first 15 seconds are quite odd as they remind me of KRPG music... although I don't know why - maybe the combination of the instruments used and the melody. This track, like the one before it, was also treated to a full-length music video which goes reasonably well with the song.

8 — Every Planet We Reach Is Dead
And now we reach the section of the album I've taken to calling "the other tracks", which extends from here until White Light. It's probably a rather unfair classification, but sandwiched as they are between El Mañana and DARE, these tracks originally struck me as rather underwhelming in comparison. To be honest, this particular track has since grown on me a lot. It's quite slow and simple, but manages to be relaxing and pleasant to listen to. Maybe I'll shift the boundary of "the other tracks" to begin with the next one.

9 — November Has Come
This one is rather rap-heavy, so I can't help but approach it with a little suspicion. The chorus doesn't quite make up for the lacklustre verses.

10 — All Alone
"Experimental" is probably the best description for this one. Another very rap-heavy track, although with an lighter vocal part coming in half-way through. Interesting but I couldn't say it was one of my favourites.

11 — White Light
At just over two minutes, the nicest thing I can say about this one is that it's short. Another experiment that, to my ears, didn't really work. Although, yet again, there was a short but interesting instrumental section in the middle. There seems to be a trend in some of these songs of combining musical elements I like with those I don't, resulting in a song I have to think twice about. Which is nice - I quite like to be challenged by what I see, hear or read. But this song is perhaps a little too "challenging" for my tastes.

12 — DARE
The other big single on this album. I would have considered this to be one of the more "pop-like" tracks on the album, although Wikipedia tells me that it is in fact "hip house"... no, I don't know what that is either. It's a pleasant, easy-listening sound though and I quite like it.

13 — Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head
Story time! Dennis Hopper provides the voice for the narrative to this "song". Hard to rate this one musically. :)

14 — Don't Get Lost In Heaven
This is less of a stand-alone track and more of a bridge between Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head and Demon Days. It has a very similar feel to the track that follows while the lyrics are influenced by the one that preceeds it.

15 — Demon Days
The title track is quite different from the others on this album. As well as utilising "traditional" song elements - a strong bassy beat and interesting vocal work - it also makes heavy use of strings and a gospel choir, creating a rather unique sound. It's quite rich and full; a nice way to finish the album.

 
As I mentioned at the start, I'm quite happy with the album overall. I'll have to see if I can get hold of their first album next to see how it compares.

At last! One of the many odd things that has been bugging me for several months was the withdrawal some time ago of all couscous from my local supermarket. It's a small Tesco store with limited shelf space. Rather than stocking a reduced range of staple goods though, the management have opted for a slightly more eccentric approach — stock a completely random range of produce that changes on a monthly basis. While the latter approach ensures plenty of variety, it's also really annoying as whenever I discover an item I like, chances are it will be gone in a week and won't appear again for another 6 months or so. Couscous was one such casualty of this scheme; having been in stock for as long as I can remember, it suddenly vanished one day, replaced with packets flavoured rice. But now it's back! I bought a lot today, just in case it sprouts legs overnight and goes wandering off again.

This week is turning out to be a pretty odd and exhausting one work-wise. It began quietly enough then suddenly got very busy. Now, not only do I have about twice as much work as I'm reasonably able to do over the next week and a half, but today Boss announced that he'd like me to accompany him on a business trip to Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) on Friday. I'll have to get up at 4am or so to catch the flight and don't expect to get back until late. I think I'll reserve Sunday as a whole-day-in-bed day.

I got back from my family get-together in the south west last weekend, but I've been quite busy with work since so only got around to sorting through my photos yesterday. I thought I'd share one more example of the spectacular coastline around Devon and Cornwall, this time a view of Marazion (or Marghasyow if you prefer) taken from St. Michael's Mount. You can see the causeway connecting the island to the mainland which is covered from mid to high tide. It's amazing how quickly the tide comes back in; my boots are still drying out.

At some point last week, the visit counter (that thing by the map on the right-hand side) passed 10,000 visits. Quite a few of those seem to be rather dodgy bots with spoofed user agent strings; since removing the search engine blocks in January when the new site went live, I seem to be getting quite a few of those. To the few strange humans who stop by, thanks for visiting. I promise to try to blog about topics that might be a bit more interesting in the not-too-distant future.

A rather handsome horse built from driftwood. A sculpture by Heather Jansch.

Greetings from sunny Falmouth. Sadly the weather isn't expected to last. The Cornish water was remarkably blue and clear today though so I snapped a couple of photos, one of which you see above.

I've had This is the One for a week or so now and have had time to listen to the album and digest it properly. Her second English album (third if you want to count Precious) is quite different to Exodus, her previous attempt to break into the American market. I won't babble on about the production differences since you can read Wikipedia for those. Suffice it to say that This is the One is more in-tune with the musical styles that the target market is familiar with than Exodus was when it was released. While I am sorry that TITO doesn't include as many interesting musical experiments as Exodus did, I am hopeful that Hikki's latest album will be more widely accepted.

It's certainly quite easy to listen to. I think the word "safe" describes it best. Some of the tracks in Exodus were probably a little too experimental for the target audience - they sometimes sounded a little uneasy, which might have been an artistic success but didn't seem to sell very well. For the most part, TITO takes an entirely different approach; thanks to Hikki's partnership with Stargate et al., the songs feel as if they should slot right into the current US popular music scene.

I'll run through each of the tracks on the album and then sum up briefly at the end.

 
1 — On and On
A good track to open the album with, I think. It's a solid, upbeat song with quite a rich soundscape, if perhaps a little bass-heavy. It's softly R&B with a very contemporary western feel, so I can see it being fairly popular among Hikki's new target market. My only real gripe is the sample in the background of the man who... well... I really don't know what he's doing. Copulating? Being very ill? Whatever he's doing, he's doing it very loudly. Sadly, now that my attention has been drawn to his manly moans, I find it hard to listen to this track without them being drawn to the foreground, rather ruining what was otherwise a reasonable, bouncy song.

2 — Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI
"Like Captain Picard, I'm chillin' and flossin'" A little slower than the opening track. This one is based around Ryuichi Sakamoto's famous Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, originally written for the film of the same name. Not my favourite track on the album, but it's not bad.

3 — Apple and Cinnamon
I really like this one. It takes a simple but effective background track, solid lyrics and Hikki's vocal talents (which thanks to the nature of the song she is able to make good use of without being forced to do anything unnatural) and packages it all up into a great song.

4 — Taking My Money Back
Hmm. Not so sure about this one. It lacks a certain something when compared with some of the other songs. It's not bad exactly; it just isn't particularly adventurous or interesting. It feels a lot like filler.

5 — This One (Crying Like a Child)
The slow, mellow melody that this song opens with lends it a pleasant, laid-back tone that carries on throughout the entire track. Nice and easy to listen to.

6 — Automatic Part II
The original Automatic has always had a place close to the top of my list of favourite songs. It was the first Hikki song I ever heard and listening to it always sends me back to that time, filling me with feelings of nostalgia. Calling a track "Automatic Part II" therefore fills one simultaneously with the idea of something potentially wonderful and the expectation that it will fail miserably to fulfil this potential. And that's pretty much what this track does, unfortunately. I'm not really sure what Automatic Part II was trying to do, but I don't think it succeeded.

7 — Dirty Desire
An interesting one. The lyrics are quite playful - "During my 9 to 5, I'm thinking 6 and 9s" and "I love you long time", for example. :) Most of the song is quite simplistic, but the lead-in to the chorus and the chorus itself help to make this quite an enjoyable listen. It also includes a "rapped" verse which is quite rare in a Hikki song.

8 — Poppin'
Another track I couldn't call a favourite, but I can't deny it's a fairly interesting auditory experience, helped a great deal by the backing track and samples used.

9 — Come Back to Me
The title track. To be honest, I wasn't too sure about this song when I first heard it, but it's grown on me. It's one of the richer songs on the album, combining a good backing track with another excellent vocal performance. I wonder if Adobe have had words with her about their trademark usage policy?

10 — Me Muero
And now for something completely different. The nature of the music behind this one makes it a little less easy to sit back and listen to than some of the other songs on the album. It reaches out and pokes the listener a bit more. I quite liked its quirky, upbeat, pseudo-Spanish style though. It adds some much-needed variety to the album, I think.

11 — Come Back To Me (Seamus Haji & Paul Emanuel Radio Edit)
Ah remixes. Not too much to say about this one. It works, although the heavy beat and slow song don't mesh as well as perhaps they should. Some of the synth parts over the verses towards the middle of the song add a splash of colour, but otherwise it's a pretty standard remix.

12 — Come Back To Me (Quentin Harris Radio Edit)
I was hoping for a little more variation in the remixes, but this one is quite similar to the first. It lacks the interesting bassy-synth elements of the Haji mix though, so ends up being quite unremarkable.

 
I have to say I enjoyed the album overall. It's quite different from a lot of the music Hikki has released previously. Even if some of the tracks on This is the One might not match my tastes perfectly, I'm glad to see her trying something new. As I mentioned earlier, it definitely has an "easy listening" feel to it - something to pop on in the background, pleasant but not too intrusive. It seems to be doing well so far, in terms of iTunes rankings and radio play, so hopefully it will be accepted by a wider audience than Exodus was. Maybe some of those people will investigate her previous works and broaden their musical horizons. :)

Note to self: Ignore all news websites for the next day or two.

I've been listening to This Is The One and will post some thoughts soon now that I've got to know the album a little better. Initial impressions are quite good. I don't think it's her best album, but it's certainly not bad.

In other music-related news, I finally discovered that the track from Requiem for a Dream that I had heard everywhere and quite liked was not actually from the film after all, but was in fact a new arrangement of the film's theme, Lux Aeterna, produced specifically for a trailer to promote the second Lord of the Rings movie. (Most confusing...) The track, entitled Requiem for a Tower, apparently saw a very limited release, so perhaps I'll keep an eye out on eBay. If you've never heard it before and are wondering what I'm waffling on about, click here for a Youtube sampler.

These arrived for me earlier in the week, but I had been unable to collect them until today. One is mine, the other is for my sister. I know what I'll be listening to this evening. :)

It's been a fairly steady week — work is busy but not unbearable. The recent mild, spring-like weather has been replaced by something more grey and damp. And the hot water in my flat is being temperamental again, as I discovered this morning when I took a shower that was somewhat cooler than I would have liked. Not much else to report.

I'm currently reading a book called Ask The Pilot, a compilation of articles which originally appeared in a web-based Q&A column of the same name. The man behind the column, Patrick Smith - pilot, writer and A.net forum regular, answers all manner of reader-submitted questions from the mundane, technical ones to the more unusual (e.g. "Have you ever flown naked?"). I'm sure most people have an interesting tale or two to tell after a couple of decades in virtually any occupation, but after years of circling the globe, Patrick probably has more than most. One such anecdote, which has proven quite popular on the Internet, involves a younger Mr Smith, a toilet and 50,000lbs of pineapples. I wouldn't normally recommend his articles to anyone with no interest in aviation as they are likely to be quite dull, but this one is humorous, well-told and is definitely worth a read if you have 5 minutes to spare.

By popular request. Sort of. :)

They're in full bloom now. Sadly the patch of grass they call home is managed by the council who arrive around this time each year to mow it - along with anything else that happens to be growing there. Still, at least this one will live on in the Wired for a while longer, even if its corporeal self ends up being mulched in the next week or two.

While I was walking to work last week, I took note of the barren trees and the autumn leaf litter piled up by the side of the road; it all seemed very wintery still for mid-March and I wondered when the fresh green shoots of spring would start to show themselves.

Imagine my surprise when this display greeted me on the same walk this morning. Apparently the mild and sunny weather over the weekend was all that was needed to set things in motion. The daffodils further along the verge were also in full bloom, but I won't bore you with a full gallery of road-side flora.

The clocks go forward in under two weeks (one less hour of sleep >_<) so the evenings will soon become much lighter. It's been a bitterly cold winter at times so I'm not that sad to see the back of it. Hopefully this summer isn't going to swing the temperature too far in the other direction though. It would be nice if the weather stayed the way it is right now for a little while - clear, fresh, not too hot or too cold and very much alive.

Or so the magical website told me. I'm not sure quite how accurate it is, but it's mildly interesting to see oneself reduced to a few charts and figures.

I've been tinkering with the site today and have implemented a feature request - comments - to make my blog a little more like most of the other blogs out there. Feel free to give them a go and let me know if you encounter any issues. If you want to respond to anything in a less public manner, the contact form is still there.

I've also finished going through the photos I took while out and about at the London Chinese New Year event last month. You'll find a selection of photos and a video on the Stuff page.

BBI is 6 years old today!

I'm down in Southampton this weekend for a social get-together, so this won't be a lengthy update. Thanks to Slum Lord Kul for hosting the gathering. Special thanks to Phoe for attending.

I had to visit the office today to pick up some paperwork that I had forgotten to bring home. Earlier in the week, I'd received half a loaf of unwanted bread from an office colleague who was going on vacation. Since I had been unable to finish it and the bread was now past its best, I decided to make a quick stop by the river on my way to work in order to give the local ducks a present. The weather was pleasantly spring-like; cold enough to be fresh, but with a little sun to take the chill out of the air.

This caught my attention on the world map for the game Perfect World, a MMORPG I tried briefly a couple of months ago when its international servers went live. The game itself was nothing particularly special, but I'm half tempted to re-install it and discover what lies inside the intriguingly named cave...

I still haven't had much time to sort through the photos I took from my trip to London at the start of the month, but I have now copied them off my camera (phone). As you can see, it was a little colder this year. I thought the snow piled on top of the lanterns looked rather festive. :)

The route I normally take to work includes a short walk alongside the river Medway - usually quite pleasant early in the morning. I had to go the long way around today though... This happens a few days each winter. I expect the residents of those new riverside apartments are waking up to discover that they're a lot more "riverside" than the builders advertised. I always thought it was a silly place to build anyway.

My trip to London for the Chinese New Year festivities the other weekend was enjoyable, but didn't go entirely to plan. My sister and I made a last minute decision to stay overnight in London rather than rushing back on Sunday. I'm sure, had it been any other weekend, it would have been a good plan. Sadly though, we underestimated the effect of the snowfall on Sunday night/Monday morning and awoke on Monday to find ourselves trapped - there were no bus or train services out of the city all day. After a day of wandering around stations waiting for trains that never arrived, we were forced to take refuge in a hotel for the night. Thankfully, by mid-morning on Tuesday, a few rail services had resumed, so we jumped on the first train we could get.

Thanks to that, I've been quite busy at work again catching up on the days I missed, which is why things have been quite quiet around here for the last week or so.

I'll try to get some photos of the New Year events uploaded over the weekend and will probably talk a little more about it then too.

I am writing this from the snug warmth of my bed, where I shall be remaining until my limbs thaw out fully. The weather today was quite varied but thankfully we escaped the worst of the driving snow I can see outside my window at the moment. It was, however, bitterly cold.

On the whole, it was a good day. I'll write more and probably upload a few photos later in the week. Until then, stay warm~

A little bit of art and craft dedicated to a friend on a special day. :)

I'm off to London tomorrow for the annual lunar new year celebrations. Last year, with China hosting the Olympic games and with London due to follow in 2012, the organisers put together the largest lunar new year festival in the capital so far. This year, with the current economic situation and the Chinatown redevelopment scheme draining the bulk of the funds available, the festival promises to be a relatively low key affair. Still, I'm sure there will be plenty to see and do.

Hopefully the weather will remain dry. At least snow is no longer forecast for Sunday, although sub-zero temperatures are predicted. Time to dig out the gloves again...

Spotted this on Slashdot yesterday. NASA have released a candid video tour of the ISS, filmed a couple of weeks ago by expedition 18 crewmember Mike Fincke, taking the viewer from one end of the station to the other. The 36 minute video is available to watch on YouTube, split into 4 parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4. (HQ versions available) Alternatively, the complete video is available to download (ASF... ick) here: Tour_2009_.zip. For anyone (like me) with an interest in space exploration, the video provides a nice overview of the current state of the ISS project, even if it is a little lacking in detail. The videos are probably going to be a little boring for everyone else though.

I feel less bad about the "storage corner" in my lounge now.

It was a relatively slow day so I was doing some (very early) spring cleaning on my work computer over lunch. One of my tasks was to clear out my junk e-mail folder; since a number of well-promoted company email addresses forward to me, it can fill up reasonably quickly. I have a fairly reliable spam filtering system in place so I don't have to go through everything, thank goodness. All that's required is to hit "Empty folder" once in a while.

Today though, instead of just erasing the folder without a second thought, I decided to run a quick analysis on the messages contained within. As you do. It had managed to collect a few hundred messages over the two week period since it had last been emptied which I felt represented a good sample set to work from. I created a number of broad categories and placed each email where it fit best. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
 

Pharmaceuticals — 50%
Viagra, viagra and more viagra, making up exactly half of the spam emails I receive. I wonder how much actually gets sold?

Male enhancements — 29%
Seriously, 29%? I really do hope that figure isn't a reflection on the number of men who lie awake at night worrying about such silly things. Of all the groups, this one probably has the most irritating and stupid subject lines.

Replica goods — 9%
I'm sure replica handbags used to be popular once upon a time, but it seems to be just watches at the moment. Buy something openly fake from someone openly dodgy over the Internets! What an offer!

Personals — 7%
Introduction agencies, chat rooms, russian brides and all manner of thinly-veiled pornographic sites.

False qualifications — 2%
Degrees and diplomas from the University of Unicornland.

Pornography — 1%
A mere 1% of the spam I receive is for openly pornographic sites. I'm sure it used to be higher.

Finance — 1%
I wonder if this has anything to do with the credit crunch. The thundering river of stock tips, loans and remortgage offers that was is close to drying up.

Gambling — 1%
Online casinos also don't seem to be promoting as much as they used to.
 

It feels strange looking at the "classic" spam groups - pornography, finance and gambling - barely hanging on at the bottom. I'm guessing that the current fiscal climate has hit the finance and gambling groups hard, but I would have thought pornography would have fared better.

It's also interesting to note that about 90% of the junk email I receive is obviously targetted at men and the remainder is not gender-specific. I'm sure I used to receive at least a couple of emails each week promising to increase my bust size. Maybe the spammers just decided that insecure males were an easier target.

It was two weeks ago today that I wrote my first re-launch post. I had naively assumed that I would be back up and running by now, but had failed to foresee the hardware failure that would occur the following afternoon and the avalanche of work that would keep me occupied for the better part of the past fortnight. Anyway, now that these setbacks are behind me, it's time to get back to business.

First, the complete blog archive going back to February 2003 has now been pulled across from the old site. I'm afraid you probably won't find much of interest in there - the content in most cases is rather poor - but feel free to look around. At the moment the front page only displays the last 5 posts; to access older posts, you'll need to delve into the blog archive.

A random selection of archived posts from 2003:

In the process of transferring the posts from the old site to this one, I did read through a few of them. It's interesting to be able to look back on aspects of one's life and observe the changes that have occurred over time. It helped to stir up a few long-forgotten memories too. Nostalgic acronym of the day: PLACICACDASCP.

My recent lack of time means that the "About" page is still missing - that's next on the to-do list, I think. The old Bokeboke Island also had a links page, directing those that came across it to the sites of friends, artists (both graphic and musical), etc. I'm toying with the idea of bringing it back, but I haven't made any firm decisions yet.

The rest of the site is largely as it was two weeks ago. I've tweaked things here and there but I don't think there have been any major changes. I still need to tidy up the code a little, but that won't have any effect on function or appearance. I would welcome any suggestions on how to improve the site if you have them.

So, what next? Now that the foundations of the site are relatively stable, my short-term aim will be to try to make the blog a little more interesting. I have some post ideas floating around in my head which I'll try to get out over the next few weeks, time permitting. Looking further into the future, I have a number of plans for things which may or may not evolve into something beyond the "plan" stage. But I'll save those for another time.

Thanks again for visiting Bokeboke Island~

An unusual sight. (BBC) (CNN)

Sorry for the lack of substantial updates this week; work has been manic. Maybe I'll have time to throw something up at the weekend. Although with the number of things I've postponed "until the weekend" so far I'll probably need at least 5 days' worth of weekend to get everything done.

I spotted this on Slashdot while chomping on my breakfast this morning - Crayon Physics Deluxe. It's an update to an independent game that's been floating around for a while, although I'd never really paid much attention to it before. It does look rather fun though. Perhaps once I've finished my current indie physics puzzle game I'll give it a try.

I spotted this while out grabbing lunch. I have the tagline stuck in my head now and for some reason find it fantastically humorous.

...would surely be quite draughty.

Microsoft made their Windows 7 beta publicly available on Saturday after a failed attempt on Friday. Out of curiosity, I thought I'd give it a quick go. I've uploaded a short screenshot tour for anyone without the resources to try it out. Please note that I am running Windows 7 in a virtual machine with no graphical hardware acceleration, so the GUI isn't as flashy as it could be. Also, I have spent a limited amount of time around Windows Vista, so if I mistakenly label a Vista-era feature as "new", I offer my apologies.
 

We'll start with the initial loading screen. Gone is the traditional progress bar/activity throbber. In its place, we have a quiet screen that simply reads "Starting Windows". The Windows logo appears about half way through startup and gently pulsates until the loading screen vanishes. On the one hand it does look smarter than the XP/Vista loading screens, but on the other, if your system decided to hang on startup (this is Windows we're talking about), you wouldn't be able to tell.
 

The login screen. Vista's login screen, in fact.
 

And finally the desktop. HDD boot to desktop took around 1 minute 20 seconds, excluding password entry. A fresh install of Windows XP on the same hardware takes around 20 seconds.

While we're looking at the desktop, I'd like to bring to your attention the Windows "Gadgets". These are the same components used in Vista's sidebar, a feature dropped in Windows 7. Now they can be placed anywhere on your desktop. This is obviously an improvement, although it's still not a particularly useful feature. Apple got it right with their Dashboard - a single keypress to show and hide your widget collection without disturbing your work. Microsoft have tried to get around the shortcomings in their approach by making the desktop more accessible. As in previous versions of Windows, the taskbar button or Win-D shortcut can be used to hide your open applications and reveal your desktop. In theory, another click will bring your open windows back, but if you open another window in this time, the saved status of your open windows will be lost. Hovering over the "show desktop" button will supposedly (I think it's a feature only available in the fancy hardware accelerated GUI mode) make any windows appear transparent, allowing you to see the contents of your desktop, although you aren't able to interact with it.
 

Nothing new here. Task Manager is classic NT, the pop-up clock/calendar and system information summary is pulled straight from Vista. Memory usage seems comparable to Vista.
 

A quick look at some of the applications shipping with Windows 7. The ones you would expect to find are still here, although they have undergone a few changes. Paint and WordPad have both received minor functionality upgrades. The most noticable difference however is the move to the infamous Office 2007 "ribbon"-style toolbars and menus.

Calculator has also been revamped. There are now 4 modes (standard, scientific, programmer and statistics) as well as an optional slide-out panel which allows you to perform unit conversion, date calculations, etc.

The number of applications included with Windows 7 is actually quite small. Many of the traditional XP and Vista applications have been moved into the Windows Live Essentials pack, an optional free download. This is most likely the result of various legal matters.
 

In Explorer, the navigation panel on the left has been redone, but everything else is more or less as it was in Vista.

The taskbar is a different story. Gone is the classic strip-buttoned Windows taskbar that the operating system has sported since Windows 95. In its place, we have a kludgy copy of OS X's dock. Applications can be pinned to the taskbar when open or dragged there manually. Open applications will be displayed with a faint border around them in a nod to Apple's different yet equally hard-to-spot way of indicating to the user what's running. A hover or left click (in the case of an application with multiple windows) will display a pop-up list of the windows belonging to that application.
 

A right click or left slide will reveal a few options as well as application-specific tasks and commands.
 

The Windows 7 beta is shipping with a copy of Internet Explorer 8 beta. It's an improvement over previous versions, but not something I'd want to use on a daily basis. It seemed to have a few bugs, especially loading and rendering images which often wouldn't display properly or at all.

Something I hadn't seen in IE before (it might be in IE7, but I don't use IE7) is the "accelerators" pop-up that appears when you highlight text. It displays a small preview of the result of sending your text as a query to a number of (Microsoft) web services. The Encarta, map and translation options all worked well. I love Encarta's wonderfully scientific answers. :)
 

Window docking. It works as per the CES demonstration. I'm not sure how useful it will prove in the real world though. Perhaps in an office environment when comparing documents or something...
 

Vista's enhanced Windows Firewall makes a comeback.
 

Microsoft have finally killed off the "classic" view in control panel. Instead, we have the new "All Control Panel Items" view which looks suspiciously similar.
 

The games available in Windows 7 won't come as a surprise to anyone. Games Explorer provides a custom Explorer view of Microsoft's usual Windows games. The games themselves appear to be direct Vista copies. I hadn't realised that Vista made use of hardware acceleration for Solitaire and Minesweeper though. >_>
 

Prefer a command line? Windows 7 sports the latest version of PowerShell as well as the classic "DOS" command prompt.
 

If you crave the classic Windows look, you'll be pleased to hear that it's alive and well in Windows 7, although some of the applications - the redesigned Explorer for example - don't look too smart. But then the same was probably true of Vista.
 

This happened when I tried to shut down. Not all of the bugs have been worked out yet...
 

I aborted and had another go. Things seemed to go a little better.
 

I think Windows 7 is to Vista what Windows XP SP2 was to the original release of Windows XP. It does feel very much like a Vista service pack. There's not much in the way of innovation - it's simply been an exercise in tidying up what's already there.

On the whole, it does seem to be an improvement over Vista. Interaction with the UI feels more nippy and responsive and it's more cautious about running housekeeping tasks in the background whenever it thinks you've turned away. The new taskbar is the most obvious change (which I think sums up the extent of the changes over Vista). In terms of function, I don't think it would be possible to rip-off OS X more blatantly than Microsoft have done here. It's like the dock's ugly cousin. Of course, they've tried to work extra features into it too, resulting in something rather frankensteinian.

The question is whether Windows 7 will be enough to save Microsoft's reputation after the damage caused by Vista. I'm still not sure we'll know the answer to that one until a few months after its release. For home users, it's not a bad operating system (as Windows operating systems go). It doesn't feel quite as "thrown together" as Vista did. The real test will be in the corporate world though. Vista was always going to struggle here - it was released at a bad time, when most companies were happy with their Server 2003/XP Pro infrastructure and when, in most cases, a hardware upgrade would have been required. Windows 7 improves on a lot of Vista's failings in the enterprise management area and should also be out around the time that businesses that have been hanging on to XP (most of them) will be looking to renew their hardware.

Bottom line: Yes, I think it will succeed where Vista failed. It's still a Windows OS with all of the annoyances that one would expect, but it should at least be tolerable. Nothing is certain though - a release is still 6-12 months away and with the competition still innovating, the race isn't over for Microsoft yet.

According to the Met Office, next week could be positively tropical (if a little damp). Time to put the hat and gloves away again?

My new hard disk arrived the other day. It will be a few more days until I'm back up and running properly, but I'm still hoping to upload the remaining bits and pieces next week. Not much else to report at the moment. The weather is cold, work is busy and the world is a strange place, as always.

Stay warm~

First snow of this winter, at least in these parts. If this continues, I'll need to fish out some warmer clothing.

In other news, the BBI relaunch is sort of on hold at the moment. A hard disk failure at the weekend means that my desktop is out of commission for the time being, so any BBI updates will be limited to brief blog posts. A replacement should arrive tomorrow, but with the other things I have on at the moment, it will probably take close to a week to get everything up and running again.

Greetings! If you're visiting this site for the first time, welcome. If you're familiar with the site and are foolishly returning for more punishment, welcome back.

In early 2003 I started a blog/website thing called Bokeboke Island - the site you see before you now, albeit in a slightly different form. It was good fun and provided me with somewhere to rant, ramble and do as I wished. Unfortunately, due to a failure to cope properly with events in my life, Bokeboke Island suffered years of neglect.

Now that I'm more or less back on my feet, it's time to make amends. Today marks the launch of the new and improved Bokeboke Island. Not only has the site been completely revamped, but it's running on a new, more spacious server. Of course, all of that is rather pointless if I don't end up doing anything with these new resources, so I intend to try to settle into a routine and update the site as often as I am able.

If you poke around a little, you'll notice that there is still some work to be done. The "About" page is still M.I.A. - it will put in an appearance once I figure out what I want to put on it. The previous version of the site had a lengthy document listing my hobbies and interests which, while admittedly quite comprehensive, was a prime example of tl;dr content. Whatever I end up doing, it will be shorter this time.

The "Stuff" page contains a few photo galleries at the moment. In time, I hope to expand it to feature a few other things. Watch this space.

The blog itself, the one you're reading at the moment, is a little empty right now. Over the next week or so, I plan to import a few posts from the original site to make this one feel a little more lived-in - I managed to grab a backup of the database before my previous host failed me.

That's all for now. Tune in again soon for more pointless rambling!