January 31, 2004
Ilium, Dan Simmons
A book about Greek God’s? What was I doing buying this? What led me to put it in the Shopping basket at Amazon.com? Was it a mistake? I don’t quite remember. I am thoroughly glad I did though; Ilium (ISBN 0380978938) was an exceptional book to read. Mixing, as I said, Greek Gods, cybernetic organisms, people brought back from the past and the last/post humans (heavy references to Eloi and Morlocks).
I have a memory from school doing some homework on Greek gods and not being overly motivated, since then this part of ancient history has not interested me one bit. I almost thought about putting this book down, it’s so full of the Gods. Eventually though I was hooked, of course they are not Gods, they are just post-Humans. The book though finishes with lots of questions to be answered, I wondered why; well the answer Olympus awaits us in middle of 2004.
I have noticed of late writers writing trilogies or follow on’s from the get go, not just writing an epic like Clarkes 2001, or Asimov Foundation and then adding to it after the success of the first book and it’s ideas. Ilium like Sawyers Neanderthal Parallax are pre-ordained collection of books. This leads the reader after reading the first waiting six months or more for the next and finding out what is really the ending of the book. These are just larges books spread across volumes and not stand alone books that have a recurring theme. I am not sure I like this style of writing, after the six months you could have forgotten all about the characters, what was the book all about. My opinion is they should if the book is big print it as one entity, not split it up. Maybe it’s about book sales?
Ilium though was a jolly good read and just because of the sheer mix of elements in this book I give it,
4.5/5
January 30, 2004
Vista from new apartment
Click on the image to see a bigger version...
January 28, 2004
etymology
n 1: a history of a word
2: the study of the sources and development of words
Peace in the house
Peace descends on the Walker-Smith household (Chile); the two loves of my life are both getting a well-earned bit of shut-eye. Indiana is sleeping because, well he is a baby and that is what he does, but doubly so today – we gave him a sponge bath, which he did not like, and then he fed like there was no tomorrow. Andrea is sleeping because she has looked after Indiana like a saint.
I am doing the ironing.
January 25, 2004
If you can kindly make your way over
Yes, if you kindly make your way over to the v1deo page you can see a quick silent short with Indiana as the star. Indiana made his first car trip today to home, so far so good. He finally left hospital after six days, I think that beats his Dad; his Grandma Jean informs me I was in for a week.
To view the video you will need the latest quicktime software.
January 24, 2004
Happy 60th Birthday Grandad
"So you tell me it's my Granddads birthday?" Asks Indiana.
"Yes, he sixty years old today. And you are almost six days old." Andrea tells Indiana.
Indiana giggles to himself and keeps on sucking...
January 19, 2004
January 16, 2004
Unexpected move...
Moving house...
Have gas leak...
Loosing Internet connection... and TV!
Working hard... switching off computers and packing away
Amongst other things of course...
New place is nice...
Hope all works out OK...
Andrea is officially 36 weeks... wey hey...
January 15, 2004
heliopause
n : the boundary marking the edge of the sun's influence; the boundary (roughly 100 AU from the sun) between the interplanetary medium and the interstellar medium; where the solar wind and the wind from other stars meet
drunk_people + (loud_music * 2) - earplugs = sleep
Last night after falling asleep during The West Wing (I was really tired, I had just come down from Paranal) I just managed to get the TV off for good - but woke myself up sufficiently to hear the people talking in the apartment above. I tried to keep myself in the almost asleep stupor. Honestly I tried. The music started, it sounded like some live Queen album, not bad music. However now I found myself awake with very little feeling of sleep. The people talking were now talking loudly. The music went up a few notches; it was a good album, but not something you would listen to trying to sleep. I now officially could not get off to sleep. Tossing and turning ensued. Conversation upstairs continued.
“Why don’t you get some ear plugs,” Andrea murmured from her sleep, almost oblivious to the now party like sounds coming from the apartment above. I got up and searched around the house. Just by chance I happened across earplugs, something we kept from our last long haul flight.
Why I could never have thought of ear plugs in the past I am unsure. It was my sleeping wife that from her sleep told me to get them. What inspiration, what luck to be married to Andrea. I just wonder why I had never had this thought in the past. I have had many a sleepless night listening to other people’s noise.
Not now.
noise – earplugs = sleep
Is something I have learnt. Today I have bought, just in case, two sets of quality earplugs for the both of us.
January 12, 2004
French Kissing Chileans
Chileans make the news today, covered here in two articles – all about kissing!
Early fotos
These are two old photographs from our burgeoning relationship circa 2000. The cutout shows us in or almost in love, or maybe only at the “te quiero” stage – a very early photo.
The background image is that of a base camp from our very first expedition to “la playa” together. It was at this beach, Hornitos, where we fell in love with each other; drink, darkness, fire, music, food, romance, laughing and dancing seemed to be good ingredients. Do you remember?
January 11, 2004
Virtual Dinner Ingredients
I have this idea. I want to invite my family to a virtual dinner. My technologically backward family is moving in the right direction - forward.
Dad is buying an iBook. It’s a start; he needs broadband and an iSight too. My Sister has to do the same. Then we can all share, across the distance (Chile, UK) a Sunday lunch. With time zones it may have to be a Sunday B-B-Q (Chile) and two dinners (UK). It’s just an idea.
This is happening in other settings all over the world today - video conferencing, netmeeting – it’s nothing new, but for me doing this with my family would be the dawn of a new era. It would be technology impressing me, which doesn’t really happen that often really.
January 08, 2004
agitprop
n : political propaganda (especially Communist propaganda) communicated via art and literature and cinema
Look 2004
If you have been paying attention then you will have noticed this website has changed somewhat in 2004. It’s got a new design and is now centralised around the bl0g and a few other pages, namely v1deo, 4lbum (yet to be re-designed) and m1nisites.
The aim behind this design is to make it look cool and nothing else, oh, there is something else, I want to see if I can stick to this one design, with little or no cosmetic changes for the whole year – a year for a personal website is a long time. Since having this website it has constantly has been through re-designs, and well now I cannot be bothered, I want to stick with something as long as possible. Reason being that with the little one coming this year I think it’s a good idea not to have to put much work in with the site. Let it just be, add to the content and nothing more.
I do hope to make friends with standards this year, and include the windows world into this look and feel. At the moment its broke in IE6/5, and partially OK in Netscape 7+ for Windows. That’s only missing out 95% of the population – who cares; it works great in most Mac browsers. It is also not very standardised, I started trying to attain xhtml 1.0, but I feel at present it’s not even close.
A few other websites should be mentioned which helped in getting this new design off the ground and up and running. The first is Decaffeinated, I borrowed huge chunks from the design of this website, I hope the owner does not mind, I learnt from this site. Another website is A List Apart which is a great help and a great fountain of knowledge and gateway to other great sources to numerous to list here. Thanks.
I hope you enjoy the new design. Lets see if it stays the same for the whole year.
January 07, 2004
James Bond Day
I could not help notice - plus it only happens once a year.
entr'acte
n 1: the interlude between two acts of a play
2: a brief show (music or dance etc) performed between the
sections of another performance [syn: interlude, intermezzo]
Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22, Joseph Heller
I am on the last pages of Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 (ISBN: 0684804506) by Joseph Heller (link1, link2) . A book that has had me in tears, of sadness, of sentimentality and of sadness, and those of mirth and of course humor. I am not sure I want to finish this book at all; I know I will miss desperately all the character that in such a short time I have come to know so well. And what a farce the book is too, full of insanity and down right stupidness, and well, quite unsettling in places.
Catch-22 was good, but it was written for and by another generation; the war babies. Closing Time though is more recent, albeit from the nineties (I am getting on myself!). Cultural references are immediately understood. This makes Closing Time so much more of an enjoyable book for me than 22. I read some reviews about this book and they generally started with “I liked Catch-22 so much I was let down by this book” well I disagree. I think though it’s just a matter of time (in which you were born), not of Heller’s writing.
Except for 22 I had not been exposed to this style of writing before. Each chapter is it’s own short story, almost self contained, told by different people, sometimes writing about similar events. However it’s the connectivity that brings this book of thirteen books all together under the one title. If you don’t know why there are thirteen books then ask Yossarian, don’t expect an answer he won’t have one, but I expect he could put you in touch with someone who does, this man did organise a wedding in the PABT.
Impending death and death of the older generation is a big theme in this book, Heller himself was 65 when this book came out in ’95, he lasted only another four years before he himself succumbing I believe to a disease he must have used somewhere in this book. This got me thinking about my parents, their age, the fact they are even now, in there sixties loosing friends. The books also made me think about my old age, if I get there, especially so concerning my wife, Andrea, this was one of the reasons this books reduced me to tears, books rarely do this to me, maybe it’s pregnancy hormones a bubbling.
Notable chapters: chapters that really touched me were the ones about Lew, from two different perspectives, firstly his own, and then his wife. Check out Chapter 11 – Lew and Chapter 31 – Claire.
EMERGENCY ENTRANCE
NO ADMITTANCE
THIS DOOR MUST BE LOCKED AND BOLTED WHEN IN USE
Read this book, I cannot recommend it enough. Darn, I have just finished it.
4.5/5
January 06, 2004
Wikipedia Dates
Wikipedia continues to amaze. If you want to know what happened on your birthday, or any other date then type into your favorite browser http://www.wikipedia.org/Month_day.
Here is an example of my birthday and my wifes.
January 05, 2004
allegory
n 1: a short moral story (often with animal characters) [syn: fable,
parable, apologue]
2: a visible symbol representing an abstract idea [syn: emblem]
3: an expressive style that uses fictional characters and
events to describe some subject by suggestive
resemblances; an extended metaphor
January 03, 2004
Telescopes in the News
Telescopes are hot news today, ESO and it’s OWL project making it into the news and being slashdotted as well, lets see the hits of www.eso.org fly for today.
January 02, 2004
Film: Just Married
Just Married is a light comedy – and nothing more. A comedy that just make me think of those heady days when some comedies had you laughing all the way through the film; Just Married was not one of them, however not bad viewing for a quiet night in.
3/5
ameliorate
v 1: to make better; "The editor improved the manuscript with his changes" [syn: better, improve, amend, meliorate] [ant: worsen]
2: get better; "The weather improved toward evening." [syn: better, improve, meliorate] [ant: worsen]
January 01, 2004
The end to last year
Last night, the last of last year was spent with my wife Andrea, and her sister - my sister-in-law - Pamela. We ate, we drank, well I did, and then we counted down to the big moment, all accompanied by a type of music called cumbre – not I must say music to the ears, well my large British ones anyway, the two girls were moving their culos all night long to their favorites. We then watched fireworks from the Autoclub at a distance. That was this years end to last year and the start to this.
Happy New Year to all.