Category: General

My mom has frizzy and curly hair which she’s sort of artificially conditioned to appear straight and manageable. My dad has straight, arbitrarily long-growable hair which just happens to be extremely weak and brittle. Due to the marvels of genetics, I get the pleasure of enjoying hair that’s weak, and frizzy. As in, I lose it at an alarming rate, and while I do have what I have left, it is unmanageable and extremely painful to work with. Yipee. Now I could follow this stream of thought that will go about to mock the chicken scientists (not scientists who work on chickens, scientists who are chicken) who don’t think it’s right for humans to play god and mess with an unborn child’s genes. You know, “moral values” and all, but I won’t. That is not the purpose of today’s update.

I digress, obviously.

I just wanted to let the world know beforehand (as in warning you so you don’t freak out when it happens) that I plan to get my hair cut. As in, really. I don’t mean some sort of 0.72 cm trim, a real cut. Why? No, it’s not some sudden change of heart regarding the pseudo-bohemian-rugged image the current locks pull off. I happened to come across this group that makes wigs (from real hair) for cancer patients who’ve lost their hair to chemotherapy. And I think that’s one hell of a worthy cause.

It is obvious they need it more than I do.

As is blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer of my life, my life is very boring. It’s uneventful in the sort of way that I usually like it to be.

Now before I go any further, in order to put the following in perspective, I just want to say — music is a big part of my life. And I’m not just saying that in the sort of way most people do — in that they really don’t mean what they’re saying. I repeat, music is a big part of my life. I’ve spent over half my life learning and performing, both vocals and, to a lesser extent, multiple instruments. I’ve spent the other half being an informed, knowledgeable and highly critical aficionado of certain very specific kinds of music.

Moving on, I am a big fan of one Manchester band in particular, Oasis. Again, I am not just saying I am a big fan. I own, listen and enjoy everything they’ve ever released — albums, singles, recordings of live performances, compilations … . I also have a ton of unreleased stuff — such as unofficial recording bootlegs from the time the band used to play in small bars. Anywho, as a further sort of “mindless drone” mark of my “true fandom” (and to be reasonably informed of Oasis related news), I signed up a long time ago on their website to be on their mailing list.

Occasionally, I’d get the odd e-mail from that source about totally arbitrary things, like their site has been redesigned and what not. I bore through stuff like that, and a few days ago, I got a very spam looking e-mail bearing the subject “OASIS UK SUMMER TOUR 2005 — EXCLUSIVE PRE SALE OFFER !”. My gut reaction to all caps subjects is to delete, but I decided to open this. And lo and behold, it’s the band’s summer UK performance schedule, complete with instructions on how to buy tickets early, so you’d actually get them. Since I was no where near the UK, I forwarded it to a friend who’s recently moved there. In a sort of “at least someone gets to use this cool chance” way. He mails back all excited, and within a little while, something amounting to “if you can make it I’ll get you a ticket too” was said to me. Of course, I hadn’t payed careful attention to the exact dates and figured the event was sometime sooner, like next weekend. So I got all sarcastic and basically said of course I can’t make it. And 30 seconds later, I read it again. It said summer, it said July.

I now own tickets to an Oasis concert. In July. In Manchester. And I plan to make it.

Now the important message in all of this is — this sort of thing would be one of the most crazy things I’ve ever thought of doing in my life. More importantly, pulling it off would mean my life is just that little bit less uneventful. I’m all giggly-giddy teenager like at the prospect.

WoW.

And oh my goodness. Related hilarity!

I just got back from a bar I’d been in since some 9 in the evening. Actually, it isn’t as hard to be in a bar for extended periods of time when you don’t drink as one might initially naively assume. Well, actually it might be. There was so much cigarette smoke about I can barely keep my eyes open at the moment. Or maybe that’s just me being sleepy.

The following is an excerpt of a converstation between a random guy at my street corner and a homeless woman thereabouts. Oh, and the guy had white earphones on.

Random Homeless Woman: Oh, you have yourself one of them iPods huh?
Random Guy with iPod: Why, hello. Yes, I do.
RHW: One day, when I get rich and famous I am going to get myself an iPod.
RGWi: Uh, you don’t, errr, yes, good idea.
RHW: The sound quality must be awesome huh?
RGWi: It’s pretty good. I like it.
RHW: You know, once I publish my best selling book and get famous, I will have one of those. But first I have to write it.
RGWi: Yes, that’s a first step.
RHW: Wish me luck.
RGWi: Good luck with your book.
RHW: Thanks! Have a nice day.
RGWi: And a good day to you too ma’am.

Now you’ll begin to wonder, given the ease with which he was maintaining the conversation, whether he actually had a player or was just sticking the earphones into his ears as a fashion accessory.

All the excitement has finally died down and the intelligent country has made a worthy choice. Kudos.

It is a good thing people around are so pleased too.

Evening pics without proper preparation suck.

First, a totally random and off-topic observation. I saw a 2 year old at lunch eating mac ‘n cheese with a pair of chopsticks. Now that isn’t something see everyday. Actually, this is the sort of thing you never see, period.

Now, onto today’s story.

I know absolutely nothing (or probably very little) about most things. But that doesn’t stop me from forming very strong opinions about them. Since it usually works out that my intuition is correct, this is a style I tend to stick to. Now all is well and good if it is only me involved. I can be (as we all are in varying degrees) naive, prejudiced, stuck in my ways, holier than thou … . I can make gross generalizations, crude over-simplifications (hey, that’s what I do for a living) and so on and still get away.

It doesn’t matter. It’s my life, I live it how I want to. It works for me and I don’t need to explain my choices to anyone.

Now things start getting complicated when there is a reason for me to explain myself. I “felt” something was right, went ahead and did it, turns out I was “too right” and now someone wants me to explain how I decided with what little I knew. I mostly can’t. There is no reason. Some things you “just know”

Why am I bringing up any of this? Tomorrow is apparently when people in this country vote on their president. How do I know? If you’ve been bombarded with vote for <insert your favourite candidate here> some 1300 times, you’d know too. Anyway, I am no one to be saying this because I was far away from home when a major set of elections were going on there and the super smart country almost picked an unqualified clown as the prime minister.

Now I could say, “make your vote count and vote for the more intelligent candidate, I ‘just know’ he is the right choice”. But then you’ll be all, “explain yourself to me. Why should I, when he has <insert stand here> on <insert arbitrary issue here>”. So I won’t. What I will say is I know from personal experience that not making a choice and having things end up near disastrously is a sickening feeling. What’s worse is you have to shut up and bear it because you don’t even have the right to complain.

This message brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood make-your-vote-count-or-suffer-fools department.

Since my earring was beginning to come off, and I didn’t fancy it falling anywhere and losing it, I removed it planning to put it back again “correctly” if/when I learnt how to. A week and a half later, there is no hole in my ear to worry about learning. After all that freaking thought I put in over so many years about “irreversibly scarring my body” this is what I get in return – the stupid thing took absolutely no time and pain to form and closed without a trace. Genius.

I am slowly getting out of what has probably been one of the worst weeks ever in terms of a lot of things. I cannot believe how sluggish and unmotivated I’ve been. I’ve been feeling “mentally ill”. I probably made it to work like two times. But all of that is slowly beginning to change. I did a ton of housework and some intellectual work just to get me in the “now I am doing something at least” frame of mind. Today, the dishes, tomorrow, the world!

And I had a grand total of two little kiddies who somehow mananged to get past the external security system and find my humble abode in search of candy. Both with parental backup. One was a witch, and another, well I don’t know what she planned to be or was. All I do know is her parents ought to have put in a lot more time into that costume.

And who’d have thunk it? There are times being a chocaholic slob actually has some benefit.

I’ve done all I can at the moment to minimize spam.
– All “linkdumpable” files have been changed to random names. Meaning, if a bot was looking for something specific like blah-comments.post.php (since it knows the format of the file) to be able to spam it, it won’t be able to find it anymore.
– Commenting is closed on all posts over a month old. Actually, it isn’t really closed but the comment is piped to my e-mail and doesn’t show up immediately on the site. If it is legit, it will eventually come up. If not, you’re a spammer and will be added to my list of people to be mean to.
– All comments are browsed through for flag words viagra, casino, etc. and if something seems fishy, it is held up for moderation before showing up on the site. So remember, if you’re making a small penis joke, and viagra is essential to the punchline, don’t worry if the comment doesn’t show up as soon as you type it. There is no need to repost. This is also done for fishy IP pools and referers.

If things still get out of hand, I will need to resort to “make-sure-you’re-human” checks before letting you comment. A pain, yes.
– Ask a simple riddle and expect a sane answer before allowing a coment.
– Show you a picture and make sure you can parse it.
– Forcing you to register and sign up each time. EEEEEK!

Eminem’s new video – Mosh. Surprisingly “activistey” and informed.

Because the other style (wordpress’ default) made me want to gauge my eyes out, I’ve hastily cut-and-paste and what not to get the theme as close to how it was before the upgrade. A lot of it is still “off”, but I will slowly fix that. Most mockable is the comment box that so-neatly fits with the rest of the scheme, not. Go ahead, laugh.

But the weird thing it still doesn’t feel “home” and I am unable to pen anything “real” at the moment.

Ok, you can calm down now. While changing a ton of journal related ‘backend’ things, I decided to update it as well.

This is just an arbitrarily long test phase. While I sort out spam blockers and comment moderation and such.

I know, it looks too bright to me too. I will make it dull and dreary soon enough.

Where do I begin? Ah yes, due to an unfortunate turn of events in her company’s fiscal state, a friend of mine was recently laid off and leaving AA soon. She told me about this in the evening, when it was decided we hang out and talk about things over dinner. As we were walking around downtown looking for a nice place to eat, we walked past a theatre where I ♥ Huckabees was showing. Having read and heard so much about it recently, I had to see it. We gobbled up what could be classified as a ‘quick dinner’ and rushed to make it on time.

And it was a good thing. I’ve not laughed this hard in a long time. It’s this totally offbeat story involving four people whose lives are intertwined in odd ways, as part of the “grand tapestry of all existence”. It’s a dream-like take on a lot of events, with a crude (and cruel) sense of humour that’s “intellectually masked” with metaphysical discussions.

Though it makes you wonder about some things, the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and ends up making fun at opposing points of view. And I can’t get the cute title song out of my head. Cute, that’s the word. Everything about it was just very cute. If you’ve not yet convinced, it even has dirty (you’ll see what I mean) sex.

Disclaimer: Naomi Watts is gorgeous. There is good reason to believe the above review was consequently clouded.

Samples: Blanket Truth, Quantity, Not Quality, and Now!

Well on the inside anyway. I just cleared up 192 MB of spam and brought it down to about 500 KB of legit comments. None of your words of wisdom have been lost, do not worry.

I am just being a little cautious and plan to enable some sort of spam blocker and other trickery to prevent this from happening in the future. So for now, you still won’t see a functional ‘comment link’ attached to the posts.

I have an SQL database size limit of about 100 MB on my host, and my database usually hovers around 3 MB in size. With recent comment spam, this rose within a couple of hours to over 150 MB and there were all sorts of resulting flakiness (and over-the-limit bills). For now, I have backed up comments and wiped them out. I will restore them after I fiter out the noise, and learn how to prevent such nonsense in the future.

Sorry.

Oh, and spam bot writers — fuck you.