30 July 2005 at 13:37
Time for an admiring look at the latest must-have accessory for nerds.
If you've ever used a cordless optical mouse, you'll know it's a great invention. It unclutters your desk, there's no cable or mousepad, you can use it anywhere on the desk. Some mice will even work from the other end of the room. So far so good.
Now a company called Dicota claims to have gone one better. I wish I was making this up, but it's true.
They are marketing a cordlesss mouse which only works while it's on top of its USB-connected electromagnetic mousepad.
Someone should tell these people.
It's not cordless if it needs a corded pad, and it clutters the desktop even worse than a corded mouse.~
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29 July 2005 at 13:55
Hotboy has been badgering me to post the dramatic old black-and-white photograph of a Teutonic ex-girlfriend. But after hunting everywhere for it today, I realise that I must have thrown it out in my last big clearout. Oops! Just when I finally have a use for it!
Never mind. I had already decided that it wouldn't be ethical to blog the whole story alongside a picture that would identify her. But now that the photo is lost, I'm free to tell all. Like the proverb says: for every door that closes behind you, another one opens up.
I was a bombed-out student working as a machine-minder in a factory in small-town Germany. One of the young women who sorted nuts and bolts had striking long red hair and a knowing smile. I got chatting, and it turned out that she had just split up with her fiancé, whose name was robmcj, just like me. Or
Rob von J in German. We seemed to get on well, though it was only much later that I found out that my main qualification in her eyes was my name. And I confess I wasn't too interested in her personality either.
She agreed to visit me in my tiny rented attic room. Well, I had been chaste, platonic, monastic, sobrietic, celebratious, what is the correct word I'm looking for? Anyway, I hadn't had sex for a year. So within a short space of time we were in my bed and within an even shorter space of time I was "overcome" if you know what I mean. Understandably, she wasn't pleased, and a few days later her family were threatening a shotgun marriage.
She and I would meet daily at the factory, mainly to discuss pregnancy matters. At weekends we would get together in the back seat of her car, and she would use her hands, if you know what I mean (I'm not sure about Blogger's policy in this area) while she kept up a conversation with her mates sitting in the front seat, quite a skill I suppose. I wonder what they were talking about.
If you read
age 17, windswept and interviewed, you may notice an audience-participation theme in my early development. What does this mean?
When the pregnancy test finally happened and was negative, I became celibate (that's the word I was looking for) again, for a long time. Eventually I returned to Scotland, to begin discovering the true version of that proverb. For every door that closes behind you, another slams shut in your face.
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28 July 2005 at 19:16
I went to see a movie last night. On the way, I stopped off at the butcher to buy a bucketload of raw chicken offal as a special treat for the dog.
As I waited for the film to start, I wondered why no terrorists have bombed a cinema before now. I would if I was a terrorist. There's no security - there wasn't even anyone to check my ticket on the way in. And it's dark and anonymous inside, and everyone's concentrating on the screen. I should write to the cinema management.
I had the bucket of offal by my side in the cinema, and I realised, if we were bombed during the film, the 2 kilos of chicken fragments would have given the forensic DNA folk a bit of a puzzle.
By the way, you get some weird exhibitionists on the web. I did a search for photos of raw chicken, and these people came up. In the thumbnail it looks as if they're kids, but they're all adults, as you'll see if you click on it. Possibly the most fun you can have with handcuffs, a syringe and a gun.
Disclaimer - this blog does not endorse or approve of any kind of illegal activity. Weirdness is encouraged though.
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26 July 2005 at 16:41
The heading is a shameless ploy to grab a higher ranking on Google. But Mel Gibson and I do have a lot in common. We both emigrated to Australia, and both had our greatest conflicts in Scotland.
And we're separated by six degrees, actually less than that. My old Glasgow friend Allan scored a good part in Braveheart, until an RAF jet flew low over the set on the first day of shooting.
It not only ruined the take (historical note - Wallace's army operated without air cover), it panicked Allan's horse, which threw him and broke his pelvis. You can read the details at
Allan's site.
The poor man spent months immobilised in hospital. As a courtesy, Mel still put his name on the credits (you can leave your jokes about "being in a cast" in the comments section).
I would have enjoyed this preposterous film more if Allan had actually appeared in it.
Baronage says that "the crowning absurdity to this movie is the idea that the hero fathered the future Kings of England".
Of course, better than being two degrees from Mel is being one degree from the delightful and preposterously over-talented Allan Tall (actor, composer, singer, guitarist, saxophonist, fiddler, painter, poet, writer, raconteur, comedian, web-programmer, the list goes on and it's so unfair).
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23 July 2005 at 20:12
The cave-dwelling
buddhist hermit on
Flat Island, has been driven out by the native Flatheids.
A view of Flat Island from UnHeard Island.
Fortunately he was offered shelter on Ling Island with the good people of the Samye sect, at their monastery which you can see below. I think he's made the right move.
I hate to sound competitive, but it reminds me of my own forebears, Euroean Huguenots, who were driven underground a few centuries ago.
But whereas they had to leave their monasteries and hide on islands and in caves, our buddhist hermit is doing the reverse, fleeing from his island cave to a monastery.
What can all this mean?
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20 July 2005 at 10:16
I have never understood people who insist that you use an approved version of their name. In my life I have been called rob, bob, robbie, rab, rabbie, robert, robsy - at school I was rubber, johnnie, and finally rubberjohnnie - and as far as I'm concerned the whole issue is in the public domain. People can choose any variant they like.
And even if they use a nickname I don't like, that's their choice, and I'm sure we can both live with the consequences.
I once knew a Susan who would seethe if anyone called her Sue or Suzy. I would understand her objection if she was being called Crepe Suzette or Sewage or something, but to be so fanatical about your own name comes across as rigid and nazissistic.
Much more serious than fascism around one's own name, is the linguistic equivalent of invading Poland. I'm talking about people whose aim is actually to take over all of the dictionary and exterminate undesirable words. For example, I heard someone recently disapproving of the word "instruct" because "it's too prescriptive".
I have an acquaintance, a woman who, several decades ago, gave birth to a child and arranged to have it adopted. Here's a conversation I had with her:
ME: Where I work, we've decided to adopt a new policy of ..
HER: Stop right there. I don't like that word.
ME: What, you mean "policy"?
HER: No, the other one.
ME: "Adopt?"
HER: Now you've said it again! I don't like people using that word.
Now, I don't doubt for a minute that the early separation of mother and child can be emotionally traumatic for both parties, but I'm not sure the best solution is to demand everyone takes the scissors to their vocabulary.
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19 July 2005 at 11:20
As I had expected, after
my interview a couple of weeks ago, they were all smiles yesterday as they offered me the job.
The job itself is an impossible one to do properly, for various reasons including contradictory guidelines and conflicting expectations. People who take on the job usually last a year or so before choosing early retirement or changing jobs.
I turned them down as politely as I could, when what I really wanted to say was "I wouldn't do that awful job if you paid me double, and I'm certainly not going to take it just to help you out, I just wouldn't put myself through the stress."
Once they realised that I wasn't playing along, their faces clouded over and they lost all interest in prolonging the conversation, trying to edge me out the door. But I wasn't having that, so I took control by asking them about themselves and how their work was going. I got them talking for a while, then I was the one who brought the meeting to a close.
picture: 1980s job stress
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16 July 2005 at 18:08
I once went to a swimming pool, where they had a notice on the wall in the changing room, warning swimmers they weren't allowed to swim within 21 days of having diarrhoea. I found myself wondering how many times people would have seen the notice, got dressed again and gone back to the cash desk for a refund, explaining "I had diarrhoea 17 days ago."
I pictured recently-dysenteric people all over the city, counting down the days until they could legally swim again: 4, 3, 2 - oops, I shouldn't have eaten that curry, now it's back to 21 again!
This post is just an excuse to show off that I can spell diarrhoea.
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13 July 2005 at 16:55
There has been recent discussion on
Michi's blog about how to wear a thong.
When UK residents arrive in Australia, everything including language seems so reassuringly familiar that you automatically assume that the vocabulary is the same. But it isn't. After embarrassing yourself a few times, you realise that many words have very different meanings, e.g. thongs. In Australian English, "thongs" are cheap plastic sandals, and stringy underpants are called G-strings.
Other words have multiple meanings, so that you have to use context to guess which meaning is intended. For example, a "cocky" can mean a farmer, a redneck, a cockroach, or a cockatoo.
Some words even mean the opposite to their Northern Hemisphere meanings. For example, you'd think "Justice Smith fronted the panel of judges" means that Smith was the Chief Judge. But in Australia it means he was the accused on trial.
This reverse logic actually makes sense in a country where the physical world is inverted (the water goes down the plug anti-clockwise, the seasons are reversed, Christmas Dinner happens in June, and the sun rises in the West).
The Google search engine, which can translate Latvian, Arabic and even Catalan, has no translator software for Australian, probably because it's too difficult.
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11 July 2005 at 21:12
I went for my swim this morning, and as usual I tried to finish on a meaningful number of lengths. Some people do groups of ten, or their lucky numbers. Since I work in I.T. I like to aim for powers of 2, e.g. 8 or 16 or 32 etc.
Most days I can manage 64 lengths, but of course if you lose concentration and go up to 65, then you're stuck in the pool for another hour or so to bring it up to 128.
I've never actually reached 128, though one time I made 90 lengths before I had to go for a lie down in the changing room before staggering home.
If only I had chosen a decimal profession like accountancy, life would be simpler, I could just swim gentle multiples of 10. But I chose computers and became a victim of bloody binary logic, an all-or-nothing man.
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at 18:52
After the great reaction overnight to
my previous post, maybe I should resolve to only ever blog about scams, or tartan hounds.
Even Nike now sees the sense of running shoeless. Just one year after releasing its most structured shoe ever – the Air Max 2004, with airbags and a motion-control footbridge – the company has switched tack by offering the Nike Free 5.0, a shoe it claims will "re-evolutionize" running by enabling people to run as if they were barefoot.
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10 July 2005 at 18:53
Years ago I was plagued by joggers' injuries. I tried doctors, hospitals, physiotherapists, but I couldn't get rid of it, even though I did all the right things and wore proper jogging shoes.
Well, it now seems that the whole running shoe business was a multibillion dollar scam, and that many of these injuries are actually
caused by running shoes. Someone has finally done
the research which you'd think would have been done before they brought the shoes to market.
The verdict is that fancy running shoes have allowed us to develop lazy feet, and the running style that the books and the shoe makers advise - landing on the heel - is actually all wrong. Apparently the safest stride is barefoot-style, landing on the toes or ball of the foot, like the Tarahumara Indian runners.
It makes you wonder what other accepted wisdom may be similarly baseless. Next thing you know, they'll be saying that dogs should
walk around naked.
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at 09:13
My
buddhist fundamentalist friend envies the discipline that nice people have, but is wary of their "neurosis and lack of drive".
There's a philosophical contradiction there. Can he have the spiritual discipline he seeks, without the neuroses? Isn't discipline a form of neurosis? We nice neurotic people are simply more disciplined about redirecting our inner nastiness. Whereas happy layabouts are invariably rude. I rest my case.
Look at Maggie Thatcher, she channelled her latent nastiness into something useful, like clobbering Arthur Scargill. That left her free to be nice to ... well maybe Dennis.
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08 July 2005 at 16:09
Soon after we entered the territorial waters of the UnHeard of & McDonald Islands, my sadness at leaving Sydney after the conference was suddenly forgotten, as a boatload of islanders rowed out to meet us. My old mate Cap'n Kev was standing in the bow, smiling and waving aloft a copy of that morning's UnHeard Herald. Through binoculars I could just make out the headline - "ROBMCJ'S SYDNEY TRIUMPH"
What followed was a full island welcome ceremony, as the traditional dolphin was clubbed and later barbecued on the beach. Even the buddhist hermit came down from his cave to share in the excitement.
As the ukulele orchestra played, the most moving moment for me came when I was presented, in recognition of my achievement at the Sydney conference, with a specially designed template for this blog, incorporating some indigenous islander design work as you can see at the top right.
As the speeches and generous tributes continued into the night, I hadn't the heart to explain what had really happened in Sydney.
What really happened in Sydney was that, due to an oversight,
my paper had been omitted from the conference timetable!
Displaying the ingenuity for which we islanders are famous, I arranged an
'ad hoc' (as we academics say) presentation in an empty lecture theatre during the lunch break. Using an empty room worked out well, and without the inconvenience of audience questions there was still time to catch a bite of lunch into the bargain.
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06 July 2005 at 16:16
Regarding the dilemma of whether it is more ethical to post attractive or ugly pictures on this blog:
This was taken in about 1982, of my partner (previously seen in a more flattering light as
Wonder Woman), with me as Basil Fawlty and my stepfather as The Werewolf. My aunt, seen on the left, was the best-looking person in the shot.
Let there be an end to allegations that I am using photos to make myself look good.
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at 13:51
It has been suggested that I have a lot in common with a major historical figure but I can't see it myself.
04 July 2005 at 15:28
That's impossible to say unless you're sober.
An ethical issue has come up in conversation, concerning some of the pictures posted on this blog.
Cass: Don't you think it's a bit sleazy to have photos of old girlfriends on your blog?
Me: But I post pictures from all stages of my life, including partners, and it's not as if the photos are risque or anything.
Cass: But you choose the most glamorous-looking photos to display.
Me: It is true that I choose the nicest pictures I can find, but do you think the people involved would prefer that I show them at their worst?
Cass: No, but all you're doing is showing off to other men, female readers wouldn't be interested in the photos.
Me: I admit I haven't shown any pictures of less-attractive partners, maybe I should remedy that.
But of course now that I've reported this conversation here, posting pictures of any woman could be seen as an insult, implying their ugliness is only now being featured so as to deflect accusations of glamouristic discrimination.
Are any ethical readers willing to comment?
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02 July 2005 at 10:47
Connoisseurs
1 of pain are familiar with that magic moment, better than winning the lottery, when the pain finally lifts after a prolonged period of backache.
It can happen on the way home from the chiropractor, or just sneak up on you without warning - the rediscovery of the wonder of life without pain.
It is perhaps the purest form of happiness, pure in that it depends on no external input, no kindness, no favours. No achievement, presents or promises. I have seen the same argument advanced for recreational heroin use.
Meanwhile, another type of natural high is promoted over at
madmak47.blog where they teach the path to personal enlightenment via regular contemplation of small arms. There's no evidence as yet that it induces anything more than homicidal mania, but it is certainly a surprising new approach to spiritual peace.
My mother learned the technique, and soon graduated to
the advanced programme, targetting famous people.
1 - in the sense of "experts", rather than "enjoyers"~
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01 July 2005 at 12:16
One of my interests is social archiving, or saving old newspapers as Cass describes it. My collection dates from the 1950s, and some of the headlines and pictures are interesting as social history.
One of the best cuttings is from The Times, about a child caught looting in London during the Blitz, headlined
My favourite Daily Telegraph photo is headlined:
Only the National Enquirer would have published this :
This one's from Motoring Monthly:
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