Sweet were the showers...

' Sweet were the showers in early youth that drenched my body, and sweet the drops of pity that fell upon the books I read!'

_{--William Hazlitt, from 'My First Acquaintance with poets'}

--

Cheers for that one Melissa. You can find that whole essay here, and I heartily recommend it's reading.

Other necessary reading: this online version of Cory Doctorow's 'When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth', which, as well as being an awesome read, first introduced me toThe Declaraction of Independence of Cyberspace, and, I concur with Felix on this one,

'I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever read. I [want] my kid to grow up in a world where cyberspace [is] free—and where that freedom infected the real world, so meatspace got freer too.'

_{--Cory Doctorow, 'When Sysadmins Ruled The World'}

Check out all of Cory's works, this one especially (not that I've had experience of all of them, only those available as audio fiction from EscapePod.org and it's sister podcast PseudoPod.org [but stay away from 'Bliss', that shit is fucking nasty...]) and, as well as this, I recommend Craphound (just click on the title to read the text), also by Mr. Doctorow. This was my first introduction to his work, and I found it quite stirring indeed. Try and find some Greg van Eekhout. Infact, just subscribe to EscapePod.org, so I can stop going on about how goddamned awesome it is. Seriously guys, just do it. I can't keep justifying it as, if I keep typing, my fingers might drop off (considering it's been so long since I've had to type anything as remotely long as this; I've know idea how those SF writers pull it off).

--

Well, this turned into something quite productive considering I had set out with the intention of writing a blog about how it's raining and it makes me sad.

Oh yea, by the way: it's raining and it makes me sad.

--

Word to your mother.

Hit me with your unrellenting boredom!

This past week, despite being wracked with pre-exam nerves and being full of beautiful, empty, relaxing nothing (one of my favourite oxymorons!), has been one of the most dull I have ever had. I've been here, sat astride the internet, that most trusty of steeds; or I've been at Simon's and that's been it, pretty much. Oh, apart from an excursion to the city-centre of York to spend money that I don't have (and can't afford to) spend on camera-orientated filter systems and presents for friends.

For a laugh I asked my computer to rotate 17 photographs counterclockwise. It died.

York is a big empty wasteland full of friends.

They could atleast give us a jungle-gym.

The State of the Solipsist Address

Hi there fellas, long time no blog. I can't really say I've not blogged because there's been nothing going on, because there has; I can't say it's because I've been busy, because I'm not; I can say it's because of the bucket-loads of work, but that would be lying to myself because I'd say I cope pretty well. The real reason is because I'm just so godawfully lazy. Rather than blogging my sordid little heart out every night I've been sitting in my room and watching either Death Note, Bleach or, I dare say my favourite of this particular trio, Scrubs, and having a jolly good time doing so.

In the hours between their watchings, however, there has been a plethora of stuff. I managed to finally write an essay worth of something higher than a low third in terms of their mark (and the guy who marked it said he desperately wanted to give me something higher too, and that I write like he used to when he started out; now he is about 26 and a DOCTOR. He has a PhD!), I wrote a perfect maple command prompt assessment (although not with out help, thank you Anthony!) and generally fraternised with the riff-raff of York.

As well as this, with the weather on the turn, I've been raring to get out there and do something a little more active. This is seeming less and less likely at the moment, considering that I am perfectly comfortable in my own home and don't feel the need to run from it in order to remove said sad little hovel as far from my mind as possible, and, as a result, do not end up walking for several miles every day. As well as that, my bike is still in York, so no bike rides. To add to this all of my friends are still at university, I appear to have broken up prematurely. So there is no one to play with, and I don't have a frisbee at the moment anyway. The stupid year 12s threw it on the roof during a game last year. Twats. However, I will hopefully be buying a new one of those sometime in the immediate future. In fact I already have the model picked out, and it's quite darling


Another sad thing about returning home is that I once again have to return to the joy that is my overly affectionate cat. Anything I wear is instantly covered in hair as a result, as I feel too evil shooing her away from me. It also turns out that today she rolled around in what appears to be nettles, the needles of which remained in her fur and were then transfered on to, you guessed it, yours truly. My hands are now a mass of unpleasant nettle-enduced, itchy lumps. To top it all off I appear to be allergic to her now. She makes me sneeze. She also sleeps in my bed all day, every day. The combination of these two pieces of information can probably tell you a lot.

To top things off I'm feeling old these days. Well, not old as such, more jaded. I was watching a series of late night concerty things put on by channel 4 earlier this evening and was having a jolly good time. All of a sudden I saw one of my heroes: Conor Oberst, frontman of Bright Eyes, spinner of silken verse and idol of millions. He played something off his new album and it was marvellous, truly beautiful. However, I came to the sad conclusion that he was popular now and had been for a while, and no longer felt special about loving him so dearly. This mixed with the fact that Patrick Wolf sang an astounding duet with Charlotte Church on prime time television has bestowed me with an undeniable sense of melaise, or ennui, or some other buggerific French word.

For some reason I took it upon myself to then look at pictures of Conor on google. I then realised I needed a haircut and that I've always loved his hair, so I searched for hair pictures. For some reason this led me to an article about how the greatest pseudo-masculine passtime of gay people these days is, rather than being a muscle-bound gym enthusiast, is to be an immaciated hipster. This may very well be why so many people think that I'm gay these days, and this is why I am still single. Damn you gay people, damn you all for having the good sense to be attractive in a modern way.

However, this led me to a link to find out which version of Mr. Oberst I happened to be. I followed it, in the interests of science, and this is what fell out:

which conor oberst are you?

you're the conor that is bright eyes. you keep pulling out brillant beautiful songs from your head and they just get better. you rock the house down on stage and are a sweet shy kid off of it. you're the best conor to date.
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

And now I'm sitting here writing this. Well, not for much longer. I'm sorry the language was not everso flowing, far from poetic, and, to say the least, a bit drab. It'll get better soon, I promise, but to be fair it's just past 1 in the morning.

Goodnight, sweet world. You'll get some more of me in the morning.

On The Healthy Lifestyle

Ok, as a student, I may not have the healthiest lifestyle in the world, but at least I'm making concessions. I try to eat healthy, I try to excercise, I try to stay away from the excessively sweet carress of my good friend Señor Alcohol and I try to get a good nights sleep.

However, the result is far from what I considered I wanted when I took up this lifestyle. The hope that I would come out looking like this:

has given way to the hope of coming out looking like this:


Never in my entire life have I felt as awful as I do now. The healthy diet means I am usually always hungry; the excercise has left me, like an old man caught under the ceaseless wheels of a steam roller, crippled, aching and quite possibly dead; the good nights sleep has turned into a restless night due to hunger; and I cry when I think about what I've done to Señor Alcohol, the poor, poor bastard.

All this just so I can look good without clothes on? 'Totally not worth it'

...is what I'd be saying if I wasn't a narcisist.

Shameless Promotion

I know it's bad, this corporate hype, but I honestly believe this to be one of the best bands ever. They're work, ocassionally heavy, sometimes poppy, always awesome, is oddly life affirming.



You'll understand soon enough.