Still dreaming

Saul Williams

When The Clock Strikes Me (text here).

Military relations

American generals are from Mars, seemingly.

I imagine that gives us an edge in combat.

Unreal images

Pebbles by Jonathan Hunt

From the POV-Ray Hall of Fame.

Virtual rights

Blurring the line between fantasy and reality:-

Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts.

Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime.

The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.

It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.

Friday roundabout

Gordon MacMillan at Harry's Place has some thoughts on the Palin Newsweek cover.

Michael Totten is concerned about a Third Lebanon War.

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change on a second, unsuccessful pirate attack on the Maersk Alabama.

Bad Astronomy has Mandelbulbs: 3D Mandelbrot sets.

And finally,

Small Town Scribbles suggests a solution to the energy crisis.

Feeble tweet

OK, so having declared today to be the first day of the rest of my life, I decided to start off with a spot of vacuuming. I even went so far as to vacuum my laptop - just to clear out the dust. Sledgehammer/nut: the vacuum sucked half the keys off the keyboard and I've spent the last half-hour fishing little black tiles out of the dust bag.

Three sixes

Six years ago, I weighed a little over 200 lbs (that's a normal weight for my height - I'm 6'6").

Six months ago, I weighed less than 150 lbs.

Six days ago, I weighed myself - I'm almost exactly 175 lbs.

If this keeps up, pretty soon I won't be embarrassed to have my photo taken. And, even better, I'll start recognizing myself in the mirror.

Life goes on

Well, I'm sorry to say, I haven't gotten around to any of that blogging and emailing I said I was going to be doing. It seems I underestimated the time and energy involved in starting again from scratch.

So, I've been getting on with things. And I now have a bed! It beats sleeping on the floor wrapped up in an old sheet. I'm still using the sheet but at least I'm elevated.

Next to do: furniture.

Update
Went out to buy furniture - came back with a small car!

A minor conflagration

It took me a month to find an apartment and the first night I'm here there's a fire. Not a serious one - although it could have been - I left a light on in the sitting-room and one of the lampshades caught fire (a faulty fitting): I woke to the smell of burning. Luckily, I caught it in time, so there's no damage beyond the lampshade and fitting.

Looking on the bright side, the place has good mobile broadband reception (as opposed to the "wing and a prayer" connection I was working with before) so I can now surf, blog and email to my heart's content. Not right now though because it's 3:30 in the morning, the fire's out and I'm going back to bed.

Contact

It's taken me a while to sort out internet access and an e-mail account (I've put the new contact details in the sidebar). I'm now back online and contactable.

Thanks to all those who mailed wishing me a speedy recovery - I'll reply now I'm online again. Unfortunately, my address book has been deleted, along with a lot of my mail (some of it unread) so, if I don't reply to a particular e-mail, it's because I probably never got it.

So it goes.

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Back and forth

Okay, so I'm back. The ulcers are under control and I've recovered well from the operation; I've started training (long walks and light weights) and I'm slowly gaining weight.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that the rest of my life seems to have turned into some kind of cheap soap opera. You know the sort of thing - lurid revelations, absurd plot twists and petty villainy. Anyway, the upshot is my family life is over and I'm currently living in temporary accommodation. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

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Playing for change

Internal investigation

No, I'm not back to regular blogging - still too sick for that - but I am having exploratory surgery today, so things are moving in the right direction.

They're going to be doing two procedures (both fairly minor): they'll be sticking a camera down my gullet and they're going to open me up and take a good look at my insides. I hope they find whatever's wrong with me so they can fix it and I can move on. But they won't be doing any fixing today, just rummaging around. Good luck to them!

Anyway, I've got to get going - I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Update
The surgeon caught up with me in the Recovery Room: "It's ulcers not cancer." That's the good news. The bad news is I have lots of ulcers (stress ulcers) and a lot of bleeding. Still, it's way better than having cancer. Am I relieved? You betcha!

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Los ocupas

I told you about the squatters who moved in next door. Well, it turns out they're Spanish. And to call them squatters doesn't really do them justice - they're more like urban homesteaders. They've already cleared the garden, turned over the soil, dug in some compost and are now ready to start planting vegetables.

They're also musicians: most days we're treated to some very accomplished Flamenco guitar. Yesterday, along with the guitars (and the biggest ibo drum I have ever seen) they put on a display of traditional Spanish dancing - it was quite a performance.

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Sick note

So, the computer is fixed but my health has taken a turn for the worse and I'm now pretty much housebound and bedridden. I'm slated for exploratory surgery but, in the meantime, I'm a bit of a mess.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be blogging for a while.

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Repaired

So, I'm back. I've had computer problems - I got through three machines in five days. The first one went bang, the second went phrzzt and the third one just went dead.

Still, I'm back. And life is getting interesting: squatters have just moved in next door. It's a rundown old house that's been empty for a while, so they can't do much damage. Maybe they'll do the place some good. The neighbors will be up in arms about it, of course. They'll probably get up a petition or something. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Anyway, like I said, I'm back.

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Here be trolls

There's a troll the size of a house over at Ophelia Benson's Notes and Comment - they've been feeding it for days. I couldn't resist getting involved - if only to try and shoo it away.

In my zeal, I misaprostophized Rawls. Oh the shame!

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Getting old

Today is my birthday, I am 49.

God, I hate birthdays: they age me.

Thursday roundabout

Dave Rich at Harry's Place on the allegation that Israel is in some way analogous to Nazi Germany.

Black Triangle covers the latest vaccine scare story.

Watts Up With That has a short primer on the greenhouse effect.

Baroque in Hackney on the news that researchers have discovered the oldest English words.

And finally,

Science Punk challenges readers to redesign the cover of Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science".