Why is 42 so important today?  Sure, it's the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  But I bet you didn't know that 42 is also the number of days until the 2008 General Election.

Depending on your age, this may be the first presidential election in which you are eligible to vote, and you are of course doing your civic duty by doing everything a young voter does to be as educated as possible about the issues at hand.  You've watched The Daily Show's coverage of Indecision 2008.  You've seen the YouTube You Choose candidate debates.  You keep up with projections on fivethirtyeight.  You've observed the venerated and unbiased political arena that is Digg.  You've become a member of the Facebook group of the candidate you most support.

In all seriousness, though, you might be forgetting something important.  You're probably going to college outside of the county in which you registered to vote.  Have you registered to be a vote-by-mail voter in November's General Election?

Fear not.  I have collected all of the necessary URLs for you to strip away the last of your excuses not to vote in three easy steps.  If you're not a California resident, you'll need to look up the equivalent forms for your state.

1. Fill out a very short application to recieve vote-by-mail voter status for this election. You can also check a box to become a permanent vote-by-mail voter (voter-by-mail?), but if your college address keeps changing, I'd advise against it.
2. Mail the application to your county elections office.
3. Start reading up on this year's propositions. You'll get an official voter information guide in the mail as well.  Think you don't care about state propositions?  Think again.  Do you care about a high speed rail system spanning across the state?  Do you care about the treatment of farm animals?  Do you care about abortion for minors?  Do you care about whether same-sex marriages will continue to be recognized?

If you're not registered to vote, but you are a United States citizen who will be at least 18 years old on November 4, 2008, and you are not a felon or legally mentally incompetent, shame on you!  You can't let all of the money both campaigns have spent on influencing our highly prized and elusive 18-25 demographic go to waste.  Besides, there are hungry kids in Africa who wish they had your ballot to cast.  Fill out a registration form online here.  They really can't make it any easier for you people.

Registered to vote?  Submitted vote-by-mail status?  Awesome.  We now interrupt this program to bring you a nonpartisan message from Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR EOIN COLFER TO WRITE THE SIXTH HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

Penguin will publish the sixth novel in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Eight years after the death of its creator, Douglas Adams, widow Jane Belson has sanctioned the project to be written by the bestselling children's writer, Eoin Colfer. The new book is entitled "And Another Thing..." and will be published in October 2009.

This from the Penguin Blog UK.

Aside from the fact that I really don't think anyone should be mucking about with Adams' work, I'm really not feeling Eoin Colfer as the one to carry the mantle.  I could be wrong, but I totally see myself reading this and going "Nope, that's not how Adams would have done it," and that'll be that.

Does anyone out there have more faith than I do?

Quotes are an inspiration for the uninspired! - Anil's status message

It’s such a huge arrogance, to love someone, and there’s too much of it around. There’s to much love in the world. Sometimes I think thats what heaven is - a place where everybody’s happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever. - Shantaram

Fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do. - Shantaram

I dont know what i fear more,the power that crushes us, or our never ending capacity to endure it. - Shantaram

I take everything personally, That's what being a person is all about. - Karla Saaranen, Shantaram

If fate does not make you laugh then you just don’t get the joke. - Shantaram

We have just lost cabin pressure.- Fight Club

Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.- Marvin in H2G2

Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it. - Marvin in H2G2

My capacity for happiness, you could fit it into a matchbox without taking out the matches first. - Marvin in H2G2

Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned. - Fight Club

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.- Fight Club

It's our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter

Who is John Galt? - Atlas Shrugged

Did you say the world is coming to an end? Shouldn't we all lie on the floor or put paper bags over our heads? If you like! - Ford Prefect, H2G2

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really matter, full of darkness & danger they were. Sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you. They meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I now know, folks in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, but they didn't. They kept going because they were holding onto something."

"What are we holding onto, Sam?"

"There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for." - The Lord of the Rings

These are not the best. Some are not even quotes, but passages and dialogs. I can go on but I'll stop here. Take up the tag, if you have some interesting ones. Looks like the extended summer of blogging just got over and I may have to go back to posting once a month. But then, I surprise myself, so hold on!

I'm not so sure.  I think discussing what is and isn't possible is an essential part of the requirements process, one you should introduce into the debate early on. The "no solutioning" rule may have been valid when every system was hand crafted from scratch by guys with PhDs  and leather patches on their elbows.  In those far off days better IT systems gave you a strategic advantage which could last for years.  But as Nick Carr reminds us, IT Is a commodity now, and our systems are customised rather than custom-built.  

I believe it can be appropriate to touch on solutions during a requirements gathering exercise, so long as the discussion doesn't suck all the time out of the room.  Technical limitations provide constraints, sure, but constraints don't have to be a bad thing:  necesity is the mother of invention, and all that.  I would argue that the medium is the model.  You can only push the boundaries once you really understand them.  The Business don't have an unfettered imagination; they want what they've already got but faster.   But maybe there's a completely different way that's better, and they need to be shaken up a little to be able to think of it:  I'm trying not to say 'break the mould' or 'paradigm shift' here.

Here's a concrete example: Wikipedia and a BBC site called H2G2.  As you know anyone can correct an error in a Wikipedia entry at any time.  It's hard now to remember how new this shared authorship model actually is.  No encyclopedia could be written like that before the Internet.  A few years before Wikipedia was launched, Douglas Adams created H2G2 as 'The Earth Edition of the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy'.  It's an online encyclopedia, but to get an "edited" entry on H2G2 takes months or even years.  Correcting one takes even longer.  This is because H2G2 has a print-based model with locked-down page ownership and a process of peer review with sub-editors and editors.  This model perpetuates constraints imposed by typescripts, compositors and printing presses.  It's sad, but the only thing that stopped the team from building Wikipedia was their own imaginations.  They focused on what they wanted to build (the same thing, but on-line) and then built it.  They could have broken that mould and shifted that paradigm if they had let themselves riff off how it could be built and let that influence what they wanted (a new way of people to work together to create an encyclopedia).  I don't blame them: it was 1998 and the web was new and no-one really understood it.  

This is why I think it helps to introduce solutioning to the conversation because it helps the Business move on from the-same-but-faster (or larger, or pinker, or whatever) and in to areas that really are different and new.  You may introduce constraints, but you also open up new avenues and spark brand new ideas.   

So I don't think it's wrong to talk about solutions in requirements meetings.  

Heretic that I am.

Anyway, I'm not here to argue that today. I'm here to complain about the close friend of mine who's recently buggered off to Canada. Things aren't the same without her around at school. Because I knew she was leaving, she was amazing. She was wonderful. It wasn't fair she was leaving. She was leaving me. How dare she leave me? She was leaving me and I was going to be on my own? And so I wouldn't say her name and I hated her and I bitched about her and I spread rumours and now I'm over it a bit and I am so scared everybody else is going to leave me that I am going to leave them first. They're not going to get a chance. It really seems to be the most logical option. I don't want to be ditched. People are going to alienate me; they're going to talk about me; they're going to hate me how I've hated them and if they don't, I'll drag them down, and I don't really think that the girls who are my friends particularly deserve to have to spend time with someone who is going to be looking at them and seeing their organs and bones and the blood in their veins, or involuntarily imagining how they would scream if that pen went into that eyeball at that angle - because I can't help that, it's a reflexive action - an immensely troubling one and one that is worsened whenever I read something like The Silence of the Lambs or The Regulators, which maybe I should avoid but seeing as those are two of my favourite books, I don't and don't even want to - I don't mind feeling that way, which scares me -

Deep breath. New sentence.

Yes, I have run away from CAMHS. I guess I've said that so often it's common knowledge now. I hate the therapist I had and I hate how she spoke to me; I hate how patronising the psychiatrist was and I hate how hard the social worker tried to be a dippy hippy. Mate. You're over the hill. Deal with it. I hate the building and I hate how they got my name wrong and I hate, and I hate, and I hate. There is so much hate inside of me that sometimes it seems that one day I'm going to explode, just burst, and shreds of Suzanne will go flying everywhere and then out of me is going to spill this horrible slimy liquid, greeny-black, and it's going to cover everything. And people will drown; and people will choke in it. And my imagination is overactive. I was so happy to be discharged I couldn't imagine anything ever beating the top-of-the-world-ma kind of feeling I was channelling right then. I didn't have to even think about any of them ever again.

But there's more to it, all of which I've probably said before. It doesn't really matter. I don't think rehashing a train of fevered thoughts is going to help anybody. Really, honestly, I just don't want to be left - oh shit. Did I have ulterior motives in leaving CAMHS? This is straight out the blue - I didn't mean to start writing this bit - the full extent of what I'm saying is only coming to me right this second.

Uh oh.

So maybe I was so afraid they would find out I was a lying fraud, and so humiliate me with an accusation (which I would deny to the last) and an order to me to leave and never darken their doors again, that I did what I plan to do to Danny. I left before they could. I mean, it would make sense. It's the kind of supremely rational thinking I'm so famed for.

There's a bit in the Hitchhikers' Guide (the Galaxy version, not the South-West England version) where Zaphod finds out that at some point in the past he burnt around a section of his brain to make it inaccessible, so he wouldn't realise he'd been planning certain things (long story). He found out when he saw the bit of brain in a scan, and on this bit of burnt-off brain were his initials, put there by the past Zaphod so that if the future Zaphod found it, he'd realise he'd burnt it in himself. Following? Probably only if you're a h2g2 fan, I suppose. Oh, well. I just mean to say that this whole situation reeks (figuratively speaking) of my handiwork, and I never even noticed.

You have just witnessed an epiphany in action. I don't think I've ever had a realisation on this scale while in the process of writing - of course, I've completely lost track of where I was going in the first place, but I don't mind where I ended up.

Happy Thursday! (I'm away till Sunday, so no worries, your comments will be answered. Eventually.)

"Yellow," he thought. The word yellow wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with.

This was the view from my front garden this morning.


I like my artsy pictures, and this qualifies i think. I took this while having breakfast in the city center. That was one of the central bus station buildings, half way through being demolished.

"Cake or Death?" - Eddie Izzard.
This is the anthropomorphic personification of Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. (and Death of Rats) I really wish i could be that famous some day :D

Alfie makes another appearance on the blog! He's looking grumpy next to my suitcases as i started packing to go to uni already.

The fun you can have with filters. That's me looking like an alien. It reminds me of a line in my WIP:
"If Dresdon hadn’t been so hung-over he could have sworn he could see gamma rays, he would have said Ace was jealous. As it was he didn’t care. "

Another artsy picture. This one i took at Roath Park on a day trip with my fiance.

now we move on to my hobbies

Those guns you see? yeah they each belonged to someone i shot in the head lol. This is from the game Unreal Tournament -Game of the Year edition. I love playing it. so much so i actually dreamt i was in the game last night. (i have weird dreams)

this was me cheating to get a damage amplifier and a redeemer (big ass nuke essentially) - i just thought it would be funny to include this one.

My fiance found this around the net so i don't have photo credit. It was apparently an original comic, and someone put the lyrics of "love is a battlefield" over it. I love this song and find this picture hilarious.

If you hang around me for any length of time you'll know i LOVE astronomy. here are some photo's from APOD

the milky way!

Rainbows in the clouds - very rare to see this by the way.

Six rainbows in Norway i believe.

I love this picture!

So there we go, thirteen random pictures.

STUMBLED UPON this amazing Hitchhiker's Guide Fan Store with a gazillion designs inspired by Douglas Adams genius, like this Don't Panic T-Shirt, here is and excerpt from the site.  Those who know Douglas Adams work will giggle at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references, this is an excellent shop and I highly recommend it.

"Of course, one can tell all sorts of things about people by the t-shirts they wear, but one can never tell when the Earth is going to be demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Just to engage your enthusiasm (if you happen to have one) I shall tell you that every design here was made by a small tiny robot sitting in a dusty dark corner of the "Sirius Cybernetic Corporation" with a yellow sticky pad stuck to his head that read 'Beware of the Leopard". This menial robot also managed to imprint the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything on some T-Shirts but it blew a diode before anyone would pay notice. So if you see one just ignore it, it is not important anyway because what you really want is the question...what?. Anyway, hitchhiker, have fun visiting my store. To navigate just click on a banner and it will open a new universe of thinguies you probably don't need but which are a definite must have."

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I think I broke my thumb on my other thumb.

The above is one of my favourite Zaphod Beeblebrox quotes and I'm always a little disappointed by the fact that much of the Secondary Phase of Hitchhiker's was compacted during the novelisation process (as opposed to expanded or left at around the same length). Firstly, my favourite version of the Guide is the radio series, and my favourite series is the Secondary Phase.

The Dark Knight, as I'm sure everyone who is anyone (in my books, anyway) knows by now, is coming out next week. Goddamn awesometasticness.

Tonight, I rewatched Batman Begins and was reminded of how completely and totally awesome both Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale are.

Following this, I did a bit of brief channel-surfing. I managed to catch the last five minutes of the 2003 film Phone Booth. It didn't seem too bad and I believe I ought to watch it in full at some point in the future.

However, it was directed by Joel Schumacher, the man who raised my hopes with Batman Forever and then completely crushed my faith in humanity with Batman and Robin. Sure, I thought B&R was fun at the time, but I was young, impressionable and, above all else, really into the merchandise. Of course, I might have only been that into merchandise because of B&R.

Until the final scenes (well, actually, when I checked Wikipedia) of Phone Booth, I thought that the caller was Tom Hanks. It turned out to be none other than Kiefer Sutherland with a (literally) slick hairdo.

Anyway, I fully expect that the lunch I shall enjoy later today will be both filling and excellent, so I had better get some sleep before then.

Which reminds me - if you're ever in Melbourne (or if you live here) and enjoy yum cha, go to West Lake in Chinatown. It's down Little Bourke St (as most of Chinatown is) and is next to what I believe is a Tatts venue/hotel/thing. Your mouth will thank you for the rest of your days.

Well, mine thanks me, anyway.

Dagens text er fra Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, beskrivelsen af håndklædets vigtighed:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

There is a HHGG quote for every occasion.  (I have a friend who says there is a Ghostbuster's quote for every occasion. He's right. Same for Mel Brooks movies, Monty Python, and more. I just happen to have latched onto Hitchhiker's Guide.)

Today, boys and girls, today is towel day. I will be carrying mine.

So, without further delay, let me share this with you from  http://www.towelday.kojv.net/

You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there’s a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitch hikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on towel day to show
your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives.

What do I do?

Carry your towel with you throughout the day to show your participation and mourning.

When do I do it?

May 25th.

Where do I do it?

Everywhere.

Why a towel?

To quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold
moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of
Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast
of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of
course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is
also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily
lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it,
slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

What started as a joke took life as one of the most sacred rule in his seminal work, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy (H2G2).One of the first advice For Prefect gave to Arthur Dent was to get his towel.

It's no surprise that H2G2 has captured many hearts—it's just achingly hilarious. Just take a look at this compiled uses of towel for a hitchhiker around the galaxy.

This section in H2G2 explained one of them:

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

I can still remember my feeling of disgust when I read the part where somebody ate the mold on the towel for nutrition, or drink from the moisture of the towel. Suffice to say, I laughed hard through the absurdity of the idea, though when you think hard it does make a lot of sense where survival is concerned.

Which is exactly what I like the most about Douglas Adams—the absurd concepts that he came out with.

Maybe some other time, I'll talk about the ingenuity of the Babel fish, the mindboggling Bistromathic drive or the annoying doors that sigh in pleasure for a job well done.

But just for now, I urge you to pick the book and be prepared to be tickled silly. Yes, the UNSW library has a copy of the complete trilogy of 4 books!

There's a reason why the book was number 4 on the BBC's Big Read list.

Until then...42!

Just a quick reminder for all of you,

tomorrow is Towel Day!

Please don't forget to take your towels everywhere you go.

You know how important they are!

-d.

Come hang out with the other really hoopy froods, man!

Towel Day- Celebrating the Life and Work of Douglas Adams

Don't have time to read all the books in this 5-part trilogy? Wikiquote!

The Movie Trailer you wish you'd seen but didn't. (Blame it on Marvin, everyone else did.)

(This year's Towel Day blog header was brought to you by those really hoopy froods at NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

Wikipedia contains information on everything from Apples to Zero Wing; Encyclopedia Dramatica fills in the snarky gaps between ALLCAPS and zOMG. Wikipedia does cover much of this itself, but ED is closer to the Hitchhiker's guide on some subjects, because "it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate."^[1]

If you're interested in getting half way there today, Amir has instructions and code over here to help you get all of Wikipedia on your iLiad. At only 3.7 GB for all of the text of Wikipedia, it is only a matter of time - you can already fit this easily on a 4 GB MicroSD card, a ridiculously small memory card about the size of a dime that costs (now) about $40. In a year or two that'll easily be 16 gigs in the space of a dime. That is plenty of room for Wikipedia and ED - and probably images, or a good portion of them.

You could also just buy an iPhone, I guess, and access it all online. But the book format, and being able to access this regardless of your location in the galaxy (and proximity to WiFi) would be rather nice...

Ouais. Bon. Je m’en doutais un peu j’avoue. J’avais un tas de raison de planter ces partiels. Une année un peu longue à mon goût, des différends avec certains professeurs/camarades, un système de roulette russe dans le choix des sujets et plein d’autres trucs plus personnels que la pudeur m’interdit de révéler ici. Bref, vous avez compris le truc, autant lâcher le bousin.

Yey ! J'ai mon UE 1 !

Permettez moi un interlude pour expliquer la note de l'homme et l'entreprise. Ce cours était à 8h du matin. Du coup fallait que je me lève à 6h et des cacahuètes pour y assister. La troisième semaine de cette matière il pleut comme c'est pas humainement permis. C'est après avoir traversé tout Paris, titubant sans canne et trempé que j'arrive à 8h et CINQ minutes dans l'amphithéâtre. M'apercevant du fond de la salle, le prof me gueule que l'heure c'est l'heure et que je dois me sortir. En plus de nier ma résolution héroïque d'être venu, il me fout la honte devant une bonne centaine de regards ébahis. Ma première réaction à été de penser de lui dire d'aller se faire foutre à ce gros fils de pute. Au lieu de ça je suis rentré chez moi et je me suis juré de ne jamais remettre les pieds dans son cours. Ceci expliquant en grande partie cela. Pensez ce que vous voulez, je maintiens ce que j'ai fais.

Au final, pour ceux qui ont quitté la fac et ont du mal à saisir le truc ça donne que j’ai toute l’UE2 à rattraper. Le côté positif c’est que j’ai tellement planté les matières que ça devrait pas être über compliqué de scorer beaucoup plus haut. Tiens puisqu’on en est dans les points positifs, je dois admettre que ça permet de faire durer le suspense, sans parler du fait que je vais revoir sexy R au rattrapage. De toute façon j’avais prévu le coup. En bâclant la première session je savais qu’en cas d’échec j’aurais une excuse toute trouvée pour mon échec. Banco.
M’enfin quand même, entre deux bravades je dois admettre que je suis bien deg’ tendance dépressif. C’est la première fois de ma vie que j’irais à des rattrapages. Yey.

Ouais bon okay j'ai pas non plus trop trop forcé...

Dans des moments comme ça je suis bien content d’avoir mon blog (et une carte bleue) pour me remonter le moral et me changer les idées. La suite au prochain épisode du coup, à savoir les 7 et 8 juillet pour la seconde session. Maintenant si je savais où j’avais foutu mes fiches de révisions ce serait pas mal…
Allez on se remotive et on avance, demain je parlerais de mon addiction à l'écriture.

BONUS STAGE !!!

Qui dit post numéro 42 dit diffusion de l’excellente bande annonce du Guide Galactique. En plus ça donne le sourire, on en a bien besoin.
Warning pour ceux qui trouveraient ce trailer alléchant, le film est à chier.

You know you want one!

It gets bigger when you click on it.

I've seen it coming! :O

-Ford Prefect, in 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'

So the following is serendipity at work - not my fault.

1. W.A.S.T.E Central - Radiohead's new social networking site - You didn't sign up yet? What's wrong with you?

2.  The answer was there all along - This is just to taunt me. Really. There was no need for such antics, whoever you are. You may be smarter than us, but "A" for answer "A = 43 - 1" ?? Dude COME ON NOW!

I suggested he should try to get Earth from Betelgeuse.

Now I might've done something silly, but we can't select Earth from Betelgeuse - but I selected 'Sol' for him and here's the image in 700x202 size as I see the banner (if size is different you just tell me, wokay?)

Notice, you doubters of the answer, that the apparent magnitude of THE EARTH'S SUN from BETELGEUSE is... ten point forty two. (Well ten point four two to be pedantically honest).

Here is the image for Harish (ask permission if anyone else wants to use - celestia for copyright, me for artistic license and THF for first-claim) 

PS: THF - Here's a better selection of images (mostly Creative commons or free-for-fair-use)

1.
I am at the bottom of a very deep, dark hole. Not well.
So not a well at all.
So not, as you might say, in the well. Not in the well at all.
—————————————————————
I could never get the hang of Thursdays - because Wednesdays ended so badly. I’m knackered beyond belief.

2.
Blunchers meet - Bloggers meeting for lunch (@ work). Mainly me and one fellow. Well mostly. Well no one else shows up, okay?

"You Know Me" says you should call it Lungers meet (because it’s lunching bloggers (I agree - it’s a weird reference to H2G2 as well - The Holy Lunching Friars anyone?) and also, I strongly insist that we stick close to North Indian tradition of ‘langar’ (a decent meal in a grudwara at lunchtime usually, for anyone who walks in - just remember you’re in a place of worship where you are among humans - not ‘people’ - other human beings - no more, no less) and ALSO because it gives me the chance to misappropriate the noun lunger f0r the verb lunge which is so NICE to say, isn’t it? but really it’s the guide reference which makes me want to use it; but then again bluncher sounds like blunder and is a nefarious word: you want bad things to happen to people who use words like “blunchers meet” - so I’d like to leverage that intensity of emotion into this word of mine - also because I like to mix styles and invent words - cf. Spannerism for more inf… hey this sentence is getting kinda LONG, plus it’s broken nearly every rule of grammar and good writing ever made! but that’s a really bad old habit since days when people wanted me to summarise when I blogged and my blog is basically ranting and rambling as you can see at the top bar out here in the current template and maybe I should stop now because this unholy sentence has just become self referential and I’m liable to refer to me in the fourth person - breaking, thereby, the laws of spatial physics and tearing a hole into the fabric of the cosmos (by Brian Greene - excellent book I’m told) and so in summary, maybe I should FULL STOP.).

In response/thanks to this, I'm bringing out some photos that I have taken @ Bangalore. All the photos are clickable and link to the slightly-higher res versions.

Two devices have been used - Sony Ericsson Cybershot k550i phone @ 2.0 megapixels or less, and a Canon Powershot A720IS.

I have a shaky hand, and a slightly less than efficient eye for an angle. Practice helps, or so I hear.

These are 640x480 samples. I can give you upto 2048px (width) if you like, for these and the photos that will inevitably follow. This is my personal property (unless invalidated by a prior copyright) and I can make some available for you to use as wallpaper only.

Not to be included - shots of identifiable people (unless they consent), bad shots, shots I don't like.

Here's a sample - more when I plug myself into a high bandwidth link.

Title:- City Dusk.

Title:- How to get off the planet in 7 easy steps.

Title:- Don't Panic - It's Just A (Nice Day).

Title:- Punny Bangalore.

Title:- Two sides of the same coin : Dawn.

Title:- Two sides of the same coin : Late Evening.

And two pics specially for Dave! Titled:- Serendipity & Upon Reflection respectively! (Sorry I'm not doing the custom file name thing - use the title phrase as file name if you want.)

Will be uploading to my Photobucket acocunt soon, and high-res on demand.

No photo has been "touched up" knowingly except size reduction. Comments and advice appreciated.

Thank you.

(I know people would like to know why I keep bangin' on about both of them. There are many theories - as deep as "it's a religious experience for you dude" (not far off the mark btw), to some ridiculously slanderous accusations involving aliens and super models from Sports Illustrated, to even further off insane conspiracy theories. Both (Radiohead & H2G2) have similar reasons, but not the same. Let's keep it for my autobiography. Or till the day when I have actually nothing to say.)

Spain because of Spain.

March 8th. The hitchhiker's guide turns 30. I was talking to this guy (senior from college)...

Nimish: Today's Mar 8... H2G2 was launched 30 yrs ago!
Kamal: My favourite radio show is older than me. :P

This is his F1 Blog btw. I hate F1, but he writes very well so once in a blue moon I end up there.

Hitchhiker's Guide @ Slashdot. Always a good discussion on there. Slashdot sends me here on BBC's coverage. This /. comment shows us why THF, DK and me have a looooong way to go in life. (Admit it you guys, we missed that angle. :D)

Liverpool whipped Newcastle 3-0. Torres and Gerrard combined to score one each after (the otherwise useless) Pennant provided his shin for a fortuitous goal. [Torres is Spanish is Tower, Liverpool have Babel in their ranks - the British tabloids went ballistic with "Tower of Babel" for weeks at the start of the season. I'm not going to repeat that.] I haven't ben keeping up with footieball. I have my reasons. :'(

Man U also bombed out of the FA Cup. I'd be ribbing Harish about it, but I have this pact with him that we don't take that stuff too far. Chelsea also bombed out of the FA Cup - to Barnsley. Captain John Terry before the match: I loved watching Barnsley beat Liverpool.
Dear John Terry - Not so smug now, are we? :)
Match reports say that Barnsley outplayed, outclassed, heck even out-Chelsea'd Chelsea.
Damn that pact, otherwise DK would have his nose in the dust now. *grumbles*

Radiohead are inspired by... drumroll please... Video games and Al Pacino. (Well okay you might've worked it out before me, but that's no reason to stop reading, right?) Proof? Wait for it. Or better yet, listen to the music for clues.

In Spain, they call me Little Castle. Why? :P

PS: My phone ran out of charge because I internet'd too much (even via USB, it loses charge slowly). And right now, my room's bathroom door handle came off - 4th thing to go wrong in this bloody room - door stopper fell off, my almirah's locker-lock jammed, the almirah lock is jamming, and now this. *grumbles* One peep out of any of you all gets it in the neck.

Currently Listening to: Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet home Alabama.