The Lair

Supermarkets go to seemingly elaborate lengths to actually make stuff you buy off them difficult to open. It’s like … the law or something. Some of the more exotic edible purchases I make are bottled. Therefore, it follows that I have a whole range of tools handy to prise the tamper proof, spill proof and 100% proof tops from these bottles. Since this is ol drac we’re talking about here - I can’t always be bothered reminding myself of where I left the can-opener swiss army knife gadget. So I have occasionally resorted to jimmying the aforementioned tamper proof lids with a common or garden kitchen knife. For extra credit, the knife is serrated; which I’m pretty sure is against the Geneva convention. I have yet to jab myself in the eye with this juryrigged bottle opening strategem. A sliced finger, however, is only averted by dumb luck rather than any adroitness on my part.

So shopping for groceries a couple of days ago, I had no qualms in slipping a bottle of confusingly, yet intriguingly named “Sweet Chillie and Garlic - oh, all right, let’s make it sound less like spicy sugarwater by adding a Thai in there somewhere” sauce into my bag. Primary ingredient? Water. Secondary ingredient? Sugar. Somewhere towards the end, just before the preservatives? Yes, chillie. But whatever. It tastes decent and that’s all I cared. Enough with the judgement. I bought it and I poked it in the bag.

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I’ve been the proverbial one-armed paper hanger sans tea break recently. Not altogether unsurprising, since I’ve been goofing off with distractions for the past few months and now the moment of fail (or non-fail) is looming up ominously on me. Any number of comics from PhD Comics might work for this situation…

How about light at the end of the thesis tunnel or tv is my nemesis (dammit, Heroes starts screening on the Beeb today and I want to see what the fuss is about) or supervisor meeting blues (although usually, I feel smarter when I meet with my supervisor and immediately sink into depression when I read through my references again) and most hilariously the thesis outline (yes. I have seven chapters. Then I made it eight. Then I figured I don’t need a real lit review. Then I realized if I don’t have a formal lit review, the external will nuke me from low orbit. So I put it back in. Then I decided the middle chapter was too long and wanted to splice it in half. Aaargh.)

In other news, I’ve been using the marvellous wp-recentlinks on this blog for snippets links. Habari doesn’t have an equivalent plugin. Well, I suppose I could write my own but that still wouldn’t take care of the existing snippets. Since I plan on moving from Wordpress to Habari at some point in the not-too-distant future, I decided to port all 800 odd links (over 2 years) into my del.icio.us account and write a more generic, far less challenging del.icio.us Habari plugin instead.

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Last HP post. I promise. No, I mean it. No matter how amusing subsequent events are; I’ll restrain myself from posting. You know, people look upon my reading of Harry Potter with a mixture of disdain, despair and amusement. At my age? Reading a children’s book? The horror, etc. This is the ideal time for me to play the snooty lit-critic and say that the writing is shoddy, that JKR sucks etc etc. It’s not that. I actually do like the books. But then, I also read Da Vinci Code for the entertainment value; so take this with a pinch of albino monk.

No, the most fun is reading the reactions before, during and after release. I alluded in an earlier post to the wildly overused phrase “internet history”. But it’s really true. Each book release was a larger and larger event, as the hype machine took over. The fan fiction (which I have mostly avoided); the ships - it all contributed to the buildup.

So this is not really anything original, but more a pointer to the hilarious outpouring of emotion (call it wank, everyone else does).

Oh that Epilogue was kind of not that great, but the anger it will engender (and the amusement I will draw from said anger) will probably make up for it.
Probably? Who am I kidding?

(source).
Word. I’ve stopped pretending to work, I’ve found myself some food, and I’m ready to trawl through the anguish. Onward.

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Yes, more HP7. I can’t stay away from the soap opera, the claims, the counter-claims. The accusations, the cries of betrayal, the inconsistencies in dialogue and plot points touted as proof of a fake. It’s wonderful internet history.

Yes, there may be spoilers. Usual warning applies - I try to keep the references vague and only link to spoilers instead of mentioning them in text.

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Harry Potter 7. Yes, it’s been available for a couple of days now. Yes, I’m reading one of the dodgiest copies around. Slowly, labouriously. Why? Can’t I wait another 4 days? I don’t know really. It just seems useful to get the read out of the way during the week, for some inexplicable reason. It’s actually a lot like Order of the Phoenix in pace thus far (I’m about three quarters of the way through). Minor spoilers and links to major oopsie level spoilers follow, so stop reading if you don’t want to know.

BEWARE. HERE BE SPOILERS AND OTHER DEMONS.
But then, it could all be an elaborate hoax. Your mileage may vary. I’d certainly laugh long and loud if this book turns out to be a fake.

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Ok. I get the fact that we need to protect kids from some influences. That’s the whole point of having authority figures. I get that. I really do. But sometimes you have to wonder …

Borders asked to ban “racist” Tintin book. Tintin? Seriously? Apparently so. Yet another facet of my childhood (who didn’t read Tintin when they were growing up?) has now been swamped by the PC brigade. Sickening.

Actually, I have read Tintin in the Congo, the comic in question. Does it have dodgy cultural references? Yep, I’m pretty darn sure it does. It fits perfectly with the other national and racially stereotypical names that Herge adopted for the other characters in the series. Try Chang, the obscurely named Chinese companion of Tintin. Or Rastapopulous, the big nosed arch villian of the piece. Or Abdullah, the mischievous Mid-eastern kid with the megarich father. Or my personal favourites; Generals Alcazar and Tapioca from San Theodoros. Stereotyped? Yup. Funny? Yes, I think so.

That’s actually not all.

The PC brigade have also had a go at Noddy and Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies. Right. So, there’s really no excuse to be watching the Teletubbies at any age. I send the nieces Disney DVDs just to get them to watch something else. I’m doing my bit to rid the world of the menace. I still think I made my point about political correctness gone mad.

Eejits. My lawn. Get off it.

I’ve just backed up my backups. I never want to do that again.

My backup strategy for various odds and ends used to be so simple, really. Throw random things onto a special folder on my hard disk. Check the size of the folder from time to time. When the size of the folder reaches 650mb or so; break out a blank CD, burn contents, add contents to catalog and store CD securely in the case. Delete folder. Whenever I need something, I search the catalog; find the file(s) I need, flip through the alphanumerically sorted CDs till I find the one I want, grab the files I need off the CD and I’m done.

Simple, right? Just needs a bit of organization upfront, but it pays off. I’ve been using this system for years - mostly with some homegrown cataloging software that works across both Unix and Windows.

Unfortunately, my download habit didn’t allow this happy state of affairs to continue. I realized this when I went down to my last 10 CDs from a 100 CD pack. So, a new backup approach was required. Bought a portable hard disk and thought, hey - I’ll just transfer all the CDs contents onto the hard disk and I’m done.

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Feds in 5. Bet you not many people could have called that. I actually thought Nads would grab the Championship by the short and curlies, considering how Feds nearly imploded in the 4th set. I think the manufacturers of Hawkeye must be pleased, at least.

Predictably, Venus over Bartoli. I had the completely unchallenging task of calling this one early and I did.

Bakary Sagna to the Emirates. Too little, too late? I’d be happier if Babel was signed too - but that seems unlikely now. And although I’ve resisted commenting on the Henry saga thus far, let me just say that he could have fetched a few million more at the start of last season - maybe more than 20.

this comic really works for me right now.

I’m waking upto the fact that I’ll need to move out of York at some point in the not too distant future. I already have a gigantic logistical dilemma with several indiscreet literary purchases. So what do I do? Buy more books, of course. I already have a logistical problem, why quibble about a book or three more to add to the pile?

Except this most recent purchase is entirely practical. I’ve already transitioned most of my reading to the electronic variety; but there are some books that simply cannot be used that way - one such being the Jane’s Aircraft Recognition Guide. Ok, so I couldn’t buy the 5th edition which is due out in September so I settled for the fourth edition. Yes, I’m buying the 5th edition too, when it comes out. Stop staring at me like that.

It’s not exactly All the World’s Aircraft, 2007 but I’ll settle.

Why do I need another Janes book? What’s with the rush? Elvington is in August.