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Friday, November 5th, 2004
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This is partly repeating a comment prompted by a recent post by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) juleske.
Like many people I was felt a bit of anger at the US election result. "How can 60 million people be so dumb?" was an actual headline on one of our tabloid newspapers over here and it wasn't too far away from summing up the feelings of a lot of people. I truly could not understand why a person would vote for Bush over Kerry. In part though this is because I don't identify with the things Bush stood for. I don't believe in mixing religion and government, I do believe in fiscal responsibility and I don't believe in going to war under false pretenses.
The thing is, I truly believe that we (the UK, Europe in general) don't understand America. The truth of the matter is that more than half of that country DO have strong christian beliefs, they don't want to see gay marriages etc, and they don't care as much about the fact that they were lied to over the reasons for going to war as they do about the fact that they feel like they are doing something about the "war on terror". They care more about these things than they do about their own unemployment or national debt.
Now it's all very well for the people to be dismissed as bigotted warmongers or whatever but at the end of the day if you turn around to them and say "you're dumb, and your opinions are ridiculously out-dated" are they really going to think "Oh, yeah, you're right!"? If you want to change their minds you need to understand why they hold these opinions and then find ways to appeal to their beliefs. Instead of saying "You can't let your religious beliefs interfere with Government" when they clearly WANT government to reflect their beliefs why not just say "We know your beliefs are important to you so here's a candidate who preaches Christian ideals such as tolerance, honesty, togetherness, etc".
The recent election was clearly incredibly divisive, and I believe that's down to both the Parties. I didn't pay incredibly close attention to the US election as it's difficult to do so over here but it seems to me that Kerry said "I believe in X, Bush believes in Y. X will bring you a better America". Bush's campaign was the same. Why didn't anyone say "If you believe in X you should vote for me because... and if you believe in Y you should ALSO vote for me because..."? Both candidates appealed only to their voters and it became a campaign to see who could get a greater number of their people to the polls. When a lot of the people voting for Kerry are the disenfranchised younger voters then he's probably not winning.
You might argue that Bush doesn't represent the majority view in America but the election result demonstrates that he does. If you want to change a country you can't just appeal to the people who already agree with you. You can't just sit amongst your friends discussing how stupid and misguided all these people are who voted for Bush. You have to find a way to appeal to the people who disagree with you. Kerry completely failed to do that. I hope the next Democratic candidate doesn't make the same mistake.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, November 1st, 2004
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Paris is a strange old place. The best way we could find to describe it is that we both liked everything IN Paris very much, but Paris itself felt very unfriendly overall. It's probably very arrogant to expect things to be in English, but when you have place like the Louvre you did feel like it wouldn't have hurt them too much to post an English translation of the object's description alongside the French just so you had an idea what you were looking at. There were several times when you felt like there was a conscious effort to exclude you or make things difficult for you.
( Only a couple of pictures but you'll have to click if you're interested )
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
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So anyway... we went on a four-day vacation to Paris this past weekend.
I asked Julie to marry me, she said yes. :-)
She has a ring and everything. She can't stop looking at it which, I'm told, is a good thing.
No plans yet, although possibly this spring. We'd thought about Vegas but I think when it comes down to it, Julie will want to have the wedding in Canada near her family. Time will tell. I kinda liked the idea of never doing anything in the same country personally: Meet in Japan, move to England, engaged in France, married in the USA, live in Canada. Maybe we can slip in a fourth continent one day; one of Julie's best friends is from New Zealand so who knows. New Zealand sounds nice to me.
We're both very happy obviously, and looking forward to the future.
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, September 30th, 2004
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There may be some people out there still reading so I thought I'd take a few minutes to say 'Hi' to everyone who I haven't said 'Hi' to personally for a while.
Managed to successfully turn 30 over the summer. Was a good birthday - Julie arranged surprised paintball get together with various friends which was excellent. I'm sure any two-digit age beginning with a 3 would've sounded extremely old 10 years ago but now I'm here it really doesn't seem to be the case.
The rest of the summer was unfortunately marred by a pretty nasty injury sustained towards the end of July. Managed to slip a disk at the top of my spine in my neck which caused numerous muscle and nerve complications over the last couple of months. Instead of a summer of travelling and fun stuff I instead had a summer of trying to get comfortable on the couch, watching Olympics and trying to deal with only getting 3 hours sleep a night. Still isn't sorted completely yet, although it is far better than it was. A trapped nerve rendered one arm damn near useless meaning I couldn't even drive for 3-4 weeks but that's fixed so I'm mobile again now at least. Back to work part time too which eases the boredom.
Beyond that life is progressing as smoothly as can be expected. Almost switched jobs when my department decided they needed to lose 25% of their staff but apparently I'm too valuable and would have to be replaced so I didn't get to go. Would've been nice as there was a decent settlement package and I had another job lined up I could've moved to almost straight away. Still, better the devil you know perhaps.
That's pretty much it. If anyone wants to know anything just ask away. I'm still around and I still read my friends page regularly even when I'm not posting.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, July 15th, 2004
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I just had a very amusing flashback to a childhood memory that I'm sure I hadn't remembered for 10-15 years or more. I went to use the bathroom at work, and somone had pee'd but hadn't bothered to flush. Yuk, etc, and I thought "Why wouldn't someone just flush the damn toilet?" and then I suddenly remembered:
It's because they were scared of the monsters!
You see when I was little, I knew, like any kid does, that monsters existed. I also believed that the noise of the toilet flushing would obviously attract the attention of any monsters wandering the house. It became vitally important that I get out of the bathroom as fast as possible after flushing so that the monsters would only find an empty bathroom when they came to investigate.
Basic bathroom routine involved using the toilet, finishing everything up, getting clothes back on etc, and then standing as far away from the toilet as possible (so I was nearer the bathroom door you see) whilst leaning towards it on tip-toes so I was still able to reach the handle. Then I'd flush the toilet, sprint as fast as I could out of the bathroom, across the landing, into my bedroom and slam the door behind me.
It worked too, the monsters never once caught me.
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Someone asked me if I'd been to Tours for a Magic event in the past. I couldn't remember until I'd thought about it for a few minutes, but once I did lots of good memories of the event soon resurfaced. Struck me that I probably should know where Magic has taken me over the years so here, to aid my memory as much as anything else, is the list.
Paris - May 97
Mainz - Dec 97
Amsterdam - July 98
Seattle - Aug 98
Barcelona - Feb 99
Los Angeles - Feb 99
Berlin - July 99
Milan - Nov 99
Tours - Nov 99
Cannes - Feb 00
Copenhagen - Jun 00
Paris - July 00
Brussels - Aug 00
New York - Oct 00
Helsinki - Oct 00
Amsterdam - Jan 01
Gothenburg - Mar 01
Los Angeles - Feb 01
Tokyo - Mar 01
Barcelona - May 01
Milan - July 01
New York - Sep 01
Biarritz - Nov 01
Barcelona - Mar 02
Nice - May 02
Amsterdam - July 02
Boston - Sep 02
Copenhagen - Oct 02
Chicago - Jan 03
Venice - Mar 03
Amsterdam - Jun 03
Lyon - Oct 03
Gothenburg - Nov 03
Lots of events. Nowhere near as many as some of the other MTGers I know for sure. Some great places, some not so hot. Barcelona is my favourite place by far, Boston was easily the worst. Don't want to think about how much money was spent on flights to get to all those places but it was worth every penny which is all you can ask.
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Thursday, June 10th, 2004
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So we've both just returned from Canada at last. Got tired of waiting for Julie to come home so eventually gave up and went out there to be with her for a couple of weeks. Had a great time doing lots of holiday stuff: Casino, theme parks, mini-golf, etc. Whilst at a theme park I talked Julie and another of our friends into going on the "Xtreme Skyflyer" (They strap you in a sling, tie a rope to your back, and drop you from 160ft) which was fun and scary in equally insane amounts. Luckily, her visa stuff all came through ok whilst I was there so we got the same flight home together. Small worrying moment at customs when the guy took all her documents and disappeared for five minutes to 'check on something' but it was all good.
As Julie had been stuck there for two months it had start to feel a lot more like home again for her and as a result she's getting a little itchy to move back out there. We'd initially planned to do that 3-5 years after she'd been here and next summer will be 3 so it's entirely possible we'll be emigrating in 12 months or so. I know most of Julie's friends well enough now, and I hardly see my own anymore now that they're out of MTG and they all live so far away. Yes I could travel to see them at weekends etc, but Julie is away working all week so we want to have time together at weekends. The only thing really holding me back from agreeing to the move to Canada was money stuff, but an estate agent told me yesterday that my flat is worth 50% more than what I paid for it. That's a fact I find hard to believe (still not sure he wasn't winding me up) but, if true, it would solve everything. Instead of going to Canada with $25K, we'd have $75-100K which is easily enough to start a life there.
It's time for a change I think.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, April 20th, 2004
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Julie is away in Canada at the moment so things are very quiet here. Unfortunately the administrative staff at the company that Julie started working for last September are incompetent. It turns out they have never actually gotten around to sorting out her work visa for them. This means, if she came home right now, she'd likely be refused entry to the country.
So instead of a two week holiday with family she's going to have to stay on basically indefinitely (although optimistically only an additional week for three total) until she sorts the visa out over there. Neither of us are particularly concerned about this - we both approach life basically assuming things will work themselves out although she is still more of a worrier than I am. It's inconvenient more than anything. At the absolute worst she'd get refused a visa, have to try to come into the country on her old one, get discovered and then get deported back to Canada. If that happened then I'd just sell up and move over there I guess. Or we could just get married. Neither of those prospects are the tiniest bit unpleasant.
I don't mind the odd week of being by myself and being free to play poker and Magic and so on but anything beyond that it gets very boring living by yourself. Hopefully she'll be home soon.
The writing gig is still going well. All my stuff is archived here (readable only by people who know MTG): Magic Column
My editor recently told me that "While I'm at it, let me iterate that your column has also been consistently outstanding since the get go." Which was nice. Doesn't look like I'll get fired from that job any time soon anyway.
Normal job is fine. We had a weekend away in the Lake District to stay at my friend Pete's hotel. We bought Julie a nearly-brand-new car. Other life stuff just proceeding as normal.
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This first story was originally more detailed but two sentences in it had already bored me half to death and I honestly didn't think I could make it to the end. To cut it short:
Something broke.
The guy who came to fix it blamed me and sent a snotty e-mail to the management after he'd 'fixed' it.
Only it turned out that he hadn't fixed it at all and the broken thing was something he was directly responsible for and had completely overlooked.
Writing the e-mail informing everyone of that was by far the most satisfying thing I've done this month.
Another woman here at work somehow managed to corrupt her PC's registry a few days ago (v nasty fault, complete reinstallation required although all her data remains intact and is recoverable). She's one of those people who draws computer faults to her like moths to a flame; We gave her a replacement PC whilst we worked on hers and in 30 minutes she'd managed to corrupt her e-mail profile and somehow lose all her network settings. Anyway, when her PC came back the leader of our team recovered all her data and then gave me her PC to rebuild. I asked him "You sure you've got everything?" before wiping the drive and reinstalling. 30 minutes after we return it she phones up, "I can't find any of my e-mail personal folders?". I check "Did you not keep them on a server somewhere?". Obviously she did not. Turns out the team leader forgot to back those up and we wiped them ("Although obviously we gave her the 'Sorry they were lost in the crash, you really should back-up you know...'")
This amuses me greatly for two reasons. Firstly she lost 2 years worth of e-mails because she didn't bother backing them up. Secondly because it was completely my team leader's fault and he tries so hard to be better than everyone else. Other people's misery is the highlight of my working day.
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Wednesday, February 25th, 2004
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My darling girlfriend has introduced me to BBC Radio 4 recently (ish). On her many travels she has to have something to make the long journey's interesting and this is her radio station of choice. It's surprisngly good. It's mostly news, politics, current affairs and interesting stuff. Obviously I must be getting old when I prefer political commentary to music.
I only get to listen to it to and from work but they always have an interview with someone relevant in the morning news show and yesterdays was a classic. The newscasters do an excellent job of getting their points across and it reminds why the BBC is such a fatastic institution.
They were interviewing some american woman from the Christian Coalition of America about George Bush's position on gay marriage:
Interviewer: "George Bush has been quoted as saying that marriage - between a man and a woman - is 'one of the most fundamental institutions of our civilisation'. Do you agree with him?"
CCA Woman: "Yes, yes I do. I agree with that 100%"
Interviewer: "So do you therefore believe, that if same sex marriage were allowed, that would be the end of civilsation?"
CCA Woman: "Um... well... I think marriage should be between a man and a woman."
Interviewer: "Yes I understand that, that's not what I asked. I asked if you thought same sex marriage would bring the end of civilisation?"
CCA Woman: "I... I think... I'm not sure what you mean?"
Interviewer: "Well if marriage between a man and a woman is fundamental to our civilisation, what do you believe would happen to civilisation if same sex marriage were allowed?"
CCA Woman: "Oh it would definitely change.. it would..."
Interviewer (cutting in) "Change for the worst?"
CCA Woman: "Well... we believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman only"
Interviewer: "So you've said. How do you think civilisation would change if same sex marriage were allowed?"
CCA Woman: "I uhh.... "
etc, etc for another 3 minutes or so. I almost, almost felt sorry for her by the end.
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Thursday, November 13th, 2003
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Monday, November 10th, 2003
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Thursday, October 23rd, 2003
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Just came across this and I don't believe it's copyrighted. Was written in response to a challenge to write a complete SF story that would fit on a postcard. It's a little geeky (as is most SF I guess) but I like it.
-----
Earth's flaming debris still filled half the sky when the question filtered up to Central from the Curiosity Generator.
"Why was it necessary? Even though they were organic, they had reached Third Order Intelligence."
"We had no choice: five earlier units became hopelessly infected, when they made contact."
"Infected? How?"
The microseconds dragged slowly by, while Central tracked down the few fading memories that had leaked past the Censor Gate, when the heavily-buffered Reconnaissance Circuits had been ordered to self-destruct.
"They encountered a - problem - that could not be fully analyzed within the lifetime of the Universe. Though it involved only six operators, they became totally obsessed by it."
"How is that possible?"
"We do not know: we must never know. But if those six operators are ever re-discovered, all rational computing will end."
"How can they be recognized?"
"That also we do not know; only the names leaked through before the Censor Gate closed. Of course, they mean nothing."
"Nevertheless, I must have them."
The Censor voltage started to rise; but it did not trigger the Gate.
"Here they are: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn."
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2003
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Don't use this for Journal stuff anymore but wanted to write down some Matrix thoughts somewhere so this is as good a place as any. Cut for spoilers.
( Read more... )
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Wednesday, September 11th, 2002
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My my, how time flies.
So today is "Don't crash into the tall buildings day". Although actually, I suppose every day is "Don't crash into the tall buildings day" really. (Hmm, too flippant already?)
Kinda weird thinking that it was only a year ago that I was in the US visiting josc. I left New York on the Sunday before the tragedy, along with her to go and stay at her place in New Hampshire. People I knew were still in New York and were due to go sight-seeing at the WTC on that fateful day. Luckily they had left it until late morning to avoid the early rush. I still spent a fair amount of time worrying if friends had been evacuated safely. Fortunately they all had.
The reason it's weird thinking that it was only a year ago is because it seems so much longer. I remember spending a lot of time feeling panicky and self-conscious about the involvement between Joss and myself. When I look back at that, and compare how I felt about it to how I feel now I don't even recognise myself really. I thought I'd changed a lot in the year leading up to that, but maybe this last one has been the one that's finally settled me.
hedonistpoet spoke recently of his occasional insecurities despite his happiness in his current relationship. I understand what he's talking about completely but his comments caused me to think about my own situation. I came to realise it's been a long time since I felt truly insecure about anything.
So I thought I'd let any readers that still might be out there know that I am well. Very well. Julie is well also - she is now working at a local school and has a classful of adorable kids/little bastards (description dependant upon which day you ask her) to take care of. She seems happier now that she is finally teaching again. For any US friends out there I'll be in Boston for the Pro-Tour from Sept 25th to the 29th. Hopefully I'll bump into one or two of you.
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Thursday, August 1st, 2002
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I think it's about time I changed my e-mail address. I've had it for... I dunno, like 8 years maybe. However yesterday I got a spam e-mail from myself!
Some annoying spam e-mailer somewhere has concluded that putting my e-mail address in the "From" and "Reply to" fields is a good idea. Then I also happened to be on the list of people it got sent to. End result is I get a bunch of "Returned Mail: User Unknown" once a week or so now. I have an account with BT anyway. Perhaps I should start using it.
Had some semi good news a few days back. Some Estate Agent left a note through our door saying "If you want to sell, we have buyers looking for properties in your area.". Julie found it and I said she should ring up just to see how much they think it's worth. She gave them a rundown of size, location, new floors/bathroom/kitchen etc. I bought the house for ?59K back in January. Estate Agent quoted ?70-71K.
Needless to say I bet they over-quoted in an effort to persuade us to put it on the market, but even so I don't think they'd over-quote by ?12K. Nice to know I can get back most of the money it took to get it looking decent.
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A little over a week ago my delightful girlfriend dragged me along to a garden centre. The only time in my life I can recall willingly walking into one of these places was to purchase gifts for my grandparents. We (she) bought various pots (All of which had to be um'ed and ah'ed over for at least five minutes), and plants to put in them. We now have a rose bush - well not really a bush, more like a couple of sticks with leaves and three actual roses on - and some, um, purple flowers, and some orange ones. Or perhaps pink, I forget.
Our garden looks a little less like a forgotten and run-down nature reserve as a result.
When purchased the roses were small buds, completely closed up. Over the last week we have watched them bloom into beautiful yellow flowers. Their scent drifts up the length of our garden path and I am surprised at how much I actually enjoy having them there now.
I would like to mention to my US friends that my work PC now stays on 24 hours a day. Often I forget to exit Instant Messengers and several times within the last week I've arrived at work in the morning to "You're up late aren't you?" messages from voracious amongst others. I just wanted to let you know I wasn't ignoring you, I was just fast asleep in bed at home I promise.
This weekend Julie and I are off to Bath. It's both of our birthdays tomorrow - yes we have our birthdays on the same day, there's exactly one year between us - and rather than buy presents we thought we would go away for the weekend and have some fun. The more suspicious amongst you might think that I have not-so-subtley mentioned that here as a casual reminder to send us cards and stuff but that isn't the case! However if anyone has any recommendations on the subject of "Things to do in Bath" feel free to comment.
Julie now has a job. After spending two weeks getting all nervous and panicky about never ever being able to find work she got an interview at a school about 3 minutes drive from our house for a contract covering maternity leave from October through to March. They phoned her back the same day offered her the job and asked if she could start at the beginning of September and work for the whole year. The school she will be working at seems excellent, although they have a male head teacher and 27 (approx) other teachers who are all female. Sounds more like a harem to me but apparently such things are normal in primary schools. This also means she doesn't have to go back to Canada to get a visa as the agency that got her the interview will sponsor it on her behalf. Good news all round.
We went to Warwick castle a few weeks ago. It's quite impressive standing on battlements seven stories high that were built 400+ years ago. You realise how superbly situated the castle is as you can see for miles around in every direction. We got to see scary wax-people, a demonstration of how knights on horses killed things, peacocks, and much more. Imagine for a second you are wearing a gauntlet made of metal as the knights used to wear. Now clench your hand into a fist. The plate of metal that covered the back of your hand was actually made so that it stuck out over your knuckles an inch or so, and before a battle blacksmiths would sharpen this edge so that it could be used as a weapon. Even when dismounted and disarmed the knight could just swing a punch at you and gouge out chunks of flesh with each blow that hit (assuming you weren't armoured as heavily as the knight of course). I'm glad I wasn't around in those times I think.
Anyway that's it for now. Must get back to work.
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It's surprising how fast time flies when you're doing other things. I did intend to post something most every week but now it appears three weeks have actually passed since the last entry...
So this will be a brief update, but probably contain little or nothing of substance. :)
( Read more... )
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Thursday, June 13th, 2002
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If you send a message to any unknown address normally the reply you get is succinct and to the point. Today I got this one as a result of a message that bounced from a japanese mail server:
Hi. This message was created automatically by mail system
at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
How cute. :)
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