Sunday, August 31, 2003

Downsize That!

Started reading "No Logo" by Naomi Klein but had to give up on the grounds that I'm cooler than Naomi so I don't really need to read her crappy book. I've heard she's into power dressing and that kind of shit. Fucking freak.

Crap local radio is played throughout my place of work every third day. For those who are interested, when it's not Radio Broardland, it's Amber Radio or BBC Radio One, depending on the day and how harsh the radio controlling dude is feeling...

Saturday, August 30, 2003

(Skate)Board Stupid

Watched "Rad" on Channel Five. "Rad" is a programme about skateboarding, surfing and BMX'ing.(if BMX'ing's a word...) Most things on channel five are crap, but this was very cool.

As I've so far failed to be good at anything in life(ok, well there is one thing...) I have the deepest possible respect for kids who can jump over stuff on their skateboards and slide along handrails etc. While watching "Rad" and eating my Wheatabix I started to think more deeply about skateboarding culture. A large part of skateboarding is about taking over "public" space and using it freely. Skateboarders discover hidden deapths to spaces such as squares, carparks and embankments. In a very real sense they are breaking free from the restrictions that are put upon people living in an urban environment. See http://www.infiltration.org for more discussion on this.

Met up with a couple of 3l337 haxors in the city centre. We went to McMurder and talked about haxor-type things. Then we hung around outside McMurder watching some old dude try to skateboard. Most of the people skatebording were about 14 or 15 years old but this guy seemed to be in his 30's. He tried hard and was doing pretty well until he realised he was being watched. While I stood around watching the freaky kids outside McMurder I felt rather pleased for them all. Most of the kids were dressed in Maralyn Manson-style clothing and had far too much hair.

Friday, August 29, 2003

The Real Start To The Weekend

Friday, like most days, sucks. The big problem with Friday is that it's built up to be something that it blatently isn't. It's not the start of the weekend. The weekend starts on Saturday morning and finishes reasonably late on Sunday night. I don't foresee this state of affairs changing dramatically in the near future, so people should start seeing Friday for what it is, just another day, crap as any other. My weekends aren't much to look forward to so I can't see why I'd want them to start early anyway. It's all a load of crap, really.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Black Holes And Baby Universes

Watched "Red Dwarf". A good episode, but not a great one. Holly, the ship's computer told the four crew members to evaquate while she navigated around some black holes. Lister(a human) and Rimmer(a dead human, turned into a hologram) crashed their spaceship into a small planet and spent all of the episode there talking about stuff while Cat(part man, part cat) and Cryten(a robot) looked for them. More detail would just bore both you and me, so get the DVD if you care.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Dialing Up

My collection of MP3's hasn't grown much. So far I've downloaded "Bad Moon Rising" by The Creadance Clearwater Revival, "London Calling" by The Clash, "Peaches" and "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers, "Ruckzuk" by Kraftwerk and "What a Wonderful World" by Joey Ramone. I've ripped "Pretty Little Baka Guy", "Shonenknife" and "Space Christmas" by Shonenknife and "LA Woman" and "Morrison Hotel" by The Doors. When I finaly get a broadband Internet conection I'll start collecting a lot more, until then I can't be bothered as it takes about 20 mins for each download.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

White Dot

Caught last the last few minutes of "I'm Alan Partridge". It seems to be a series that I havn't seen, so I was pretty gutted. I've realised that I've started to watch quite a lot of TV, despite the fact that I often find myself telling people I hardly watch any TV. It's a situation that I must rectify. I spent a whole week in Japan without watching any TV. It was international turn off TV week run by the good people of http://www.whitedot.org which is an anti-TV organisation

Sunday, August 24, 2003

BBC Bullshit

Recieved guests and went to my martial arts lesson. At the lesson I studied "Jutte Jutsu", which is fighting using a traditional Japanese police trunchon. The jutte is made of iron and has a hooked part for catching knives and swords. Using the hook to catch colds is unlikely to be sucessful.

Watched "TV's greatest characters" on Channel Four. I was rfeminded once again that British TV was the best in the whole world. Watching the BBC at home and listening to BBC Radio One at work has convinced me once and for all that it's time for a strong campaign against the BBC, led by yours truly. Sometime next month I'll make a new website, "BBC Bullshit" and start calling every BBC programme. Soon the BBC will crumble and I'll be able to replace it with "The Karamoon Broadcasting Allience". Or something... Fuck the BBC etc.

Saturday, August 23, 2003

A Holiday For Banks! WTF?

Bank holiday Monday, but not sure if I will be getting paid for it, and thus was unable to enjoy it much. Bank holiday's in England are crap. The only good thing about them is the Blur song, "Bankholiday" on the Parklife album.

Peggy Sue Got Married

My sister got married. Other than that, Saturday was quite dull. I ate wedding cake, Corination chicken, and drank lots of orange juice. I always feel stupid eating Corination chicken because it's crap. My Japanese readers may be wondering what Corination chicken is.(I know you don't care, but just pretend you do) A long, long time ago Elizebeth was crowned queen of England. She was crap, and so was England. She was crap because most of the Royal family are, England was crap because everyone had eaten all the good food during World War Two, without thinking ahead.

Friday, August 22, 2003

Messing With Nature

Watched "Pheonix Nights" but couldn't enjoy it much because everyone kept talking. Thought about inventing a selective ear filter system so that I wouldn't have to hear other people talk crap to me. I got quite far with the design(in my head) but just as I was about to make an amazing breakthrough I gave up and forgot all the cool aspects of the invention.

One invention that I will put some serious time and effort into inventing soon is the "Karamoon Teralung". A Teralung is like an aqualung that allows one to breath underwater when SCUBA diving except that it's allows an octopus to breath on land. It's always been a dream of mine to have a pet octopus that I could take for walks and attack people with. An octopus could probably jump about six feet(2 m) in the air and grab onto someone's face. It could, it it was hungry, eat the persons face using it's beak. That would be soooooo kewl. The terra lung would look like a pair of oversized, water-filled headphones. The water-filled chambers would cover the gills of the octopus, allowing it to breath. The water would have oxygen bubbled through it and the carbon-dioxide would be removed by using a filter. One problem with my design is that a octopus's eyes are designed for seeing through water so they wouldn't work well when used for seeing from air. My pet octopus would thus spend a lot of it's time bumping into things, but it can't be helped. Trying to put glasses on a octopus is just plain dumb.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Train In Vain

A very good episode of Red Dwarf. Can't be bothered to write about it though.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Big Brother Is Watching J00

My sister and her boyfriend came to stay. Watched TV. TV watched me, if the conspiracy theory nutters are to be believed.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Home From Home

I'm slowly transfering my website from Geocities to it's new home, the Super Dimensional Fortress. SDF is an online community run by SMJ. It is very, very cool. To use it telnet to sdf.lonestar.org If you've never used telnet, the following may help. Telnet is a program(this is NOT true, it's a protocol) that allows you to conect to another computer. To use telnet on windows, go to the Start menu and select "Run...". Type "telnet" and hit enter. Telnet will start up. Type "sdf.lonestar.org" where it says "host:". It will then connect to the Super Dimensional Fortress's computer in the US. Type "new" for the user name and hit enter. You can then set up a free account by following the on-screen instructions and enjoy chatting, playing great games(such as Dopewars) and generally being cool. HTTP sucks, Telnet rules.

Monday, August 18, 2003

Could Be Tuesday?

Just another manic Monday. I wish it was Sunday. That's my funday.

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Pretty Little Baka Guy

Got up at 4:40am, probably for the first time in the last five years. I then worked 6am to 4pm. I was able to survive only by keeping the following two facts firmly in my mind; firstly, that everyone I met at work would, in the end, die and secondly, that I was being paid double my usual wage. Although we aren't allowed to wear walkmans at work, I was lucky enough to be able to hear the Shonen Knife album "Pretty Little Baka Guy" playing in my head. Further more, it was loud enough to drown out Radio Broadland, which is a dire local radio station.

Saturday, August 16, 2003

MP3/CND

Saturday is a fucking waste of time if your week lacks structure. Monday to Friday, I wake up, and go to sleep 14 hours later. Saturday is no different. Downloaded "CD-Copy" and spent quite a while copying my CD's to my PC. Expect the best MP3's to be on my site soon.

Friday, August 15, 2003

Not Lonely. Really

A long, long day at work. Fortunately my three other boxes came today, so I now have a choice of what clothes I wear and what colour of origami paper I use to fold my paper friends from.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Hot Choc

My first box of stuff from Japan arrived this morning. I'm kind of puzzled as to why the other three didn't come as well. I very much hope that they weren't lost at sea. Another possibility is that a Yoda-like Japanese sailor is currently playing with the contents of the boxes. At least I've been reunited with my copy of "TCP/IP Illustrated, vol. 1, The Protocols" and my pathetic collection of CD's. I can now study the 4-layer networking model while listening to Shonen Knife sing about hot chocolate. Life is good...

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Ruckzuck

What I've been...

Listening to: "Ruckzuck" by Kraftwerk. There will come a time in my life when I'll
listen only to Kraftwerk. Hopefully it will be beamed into my skull by
some kind of laser system.

Watching: Nothing. No TV for fucking ages. A good thing, too. See
http://www.whitedot.org

Reading: "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. Pretty crap really. It's about the third time
I've read it, and it gets more dull with each reading. Asimov didn't have
much to say except that there would be lots of robots in the future and
they'd be made by an American company. On the subject of robots, the famous
Honda robot, "Asimo" is not a robot at all but is in fact a puppet. Yet
another reason why you can't trust anything that come from Japan.

Eating: Cous cous. Bagels. I cannot eat bagels without remembering my first one. I
rushed back home and told my father how great they were. Unfortunately, the
good friend who introduced me to them(Dr Edward Bearskin), also introduced me
to the word "Daigo"(He has a habit of teaching me new words). It goes without
saying that the consequences were hilarious.

Pointing my browser at: http://www.thinkofthechildren.co.uk and
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Excuses, Excuses

Couldn't go to my martial arts class because of work. I guess that's better than not being able to go because of a Turk.

Monday, August 11, 2003

It's Magic!

Bought the book "Mark Wilson's Complete Magic Course" from the bookshop at work. It was slightly damaged so I got a 90% discount. Not interesting, but true.

Sunday, August 10, 2003

The Teaches Of Peaches

Went to martial arts class. Only me and the instructor there so I learnt a lot. Enjoyed the hour long drive each way to the dojo while listening to "The Teaches of Peaches" and a couple of fantastic compilations(soon to be on this site) made by my good friend The Phin.

Saturday, August 09, 2003

The Moon Spoon

Played Amiga games with my good friend Moon Spoon. Drank cream soda, possibly the most elite drink since Earl Grey tea. Ate Viennese Whirls. Listened to Kraftwerk. Thought about monkeys.

Friday, August 08, 2003

An Undercut Haircut

For me, the biggest problem with having a job is that I sometimes walk into work and everyone says "Oh, Karamoon. Have you had your hair cut?". I say, "Er, no. I just washed it..."

Thursday, August 07, 2003

Firsday(sic)

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Arthur Dent said "I was never very good at Thursdays". My life has never seemed more empty.

Monday, August 04, 2003

Gammy Leg

First day at work. It wasn't as bad as I had expected, despite the fact that almost every single person I met had something physically wrong with them. I spent the whole day trying not to look too closely at anyone, lest I might upset them. Rather surprised to see that the refugee guy was given a job.(see Tuesday, 29th July)

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Martober

One of the longest Sundays that I've ever had. It just went on and on. Finally it was over, and I was able to breath a sigh of relief.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

Modern Life Is Rubbish

Listened to the album "Parklife" by Blur while correcting the grammar of a friend's Doctoral thesis. Quite depressing, really.

Friday, August 01, 2003

"In Belgium They Put Mayonaise On French Fries"

Attended a meeting of Norwich 2600, my local hacker group. Ate some chips with mayonnaise. Drank coke. Thought about burning in Hell for eternity. Realised I already was.