I Think This Takes it to its Logical Conclusion:

HAL at Home

My friend Neil, knowing my interests and weaknesses better than anyone other than my wife, gave me a spectacular birthday present, seen hanging in the picture above -- a print in the style of one of HAL's readouts. I think it's amazing, and really sets off the room.

Watchmen - Hitler finds out about the ending

I don't need the internet to tell me that

Another frozen river.
I don’t care enough to know its name;
That’s not the story I’m trying to tell.
All this talk of storms.

Our asynchronous time:
You wake as I go to sleep,
Our brief conversations in the day,
satellite static in the spaces between words.

Through processes and queuing I'll return east,
longitudes converging,
and sleep in your day,
waiting for you to come home.

On My Way to Breakfast

The Hyatt has a very Logan's Run interior.

It was at this point I started to think that waffles would be a good choice for breakfast.

Or maybe beans.

A bit of a brave claim.

It's really cold!

Wow

http://www.popsci.com/content/inauguration-day

The Most Pynchon Thing I've Seen on the Internets:

California store selling jerky from cows abducted by aliens

... I bet he's kicking himself this wasn't in Vineland.

Well that was amazing

As I said, we stayed up all night and watched the election -- from 7pm to 7am. In Denmark, we mostly had to rely on CNN, but it was still gripping. Their much-hyped hologram was rubbish though. They could have done the same thing by just compositing in an image (if they didn't cheat and just do that). We supplemented with regular internet checks and some Danish/Norwegian coverage.

I had to stay up all the way to the end of Obama's speech -- I got burned with the 2001 election when Gore hadn't won two days later. The speech was great closure, and I was very tired and emotional by the end. I don't think I've been that tearful during an election night since that time they voted Bush in again.

There's a lot riding on this man's shoulders now, but he will get some great people to help him get there.

Sometimes, things do turn out the right way.

Exciting Times

We're staying up late tonight to watch the election - it's going to be exciting. I really think that the American People have a chance to do something amazing here.

Of course, if they screw it up this time, we're pushing them into the sun.

I Hated Brand First

(I have revised this post, as on second reading it really wasn't vitriolic enough)

I feel I should say that I hated Russell Brand long before any of those bandwagon-jumping complainers phoned the BBC. I hated him long before I even knew who he was -- just seeing his bloated, retarded face staring out at me from bookshelves was enough to instil an animal desire to eliminate him from the gene pool lest he soil it by reproducing. I literally could not punch his face often or hard enough. And then I heard him speak.

I'm not too sure what all this prank call fuss is about since I don't live in the UK and don't really want to give the turd any mental bandwidth, but hopefully this will be the end of him. The British Public really only have themselves to blame -- this is what happens when you look to a fat, talentless junkie to provide your five minutes of entertainment: having suddenly pulled a "purpose" out of somewhere, they outstay their welcome until the last puerile laughs have died out. Comedy is a profession, don't leave it to useless wastes of skin.

If he does somehow end up on ITV, I'll only watch him if he stars in "Overdose of the Week". It's a pitch I have been developing. Call me.

If Only...

Though I don't agree with the use of "probably" -- it's too much like fence-sitting, and I bet Dawkins doesn't approve either. Still, it's a start.

All Aboard the Atheist Bus Campaign

Fundraising target: £5,500.00
Donations so far: £ 110,156.83

http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus

... it's not just me, is it?

Ridley Scott to film The Forever War?

When I heard the rumour a shiver ran down my spine - I had to stand up at my desk and pace around a bit. Could it really be true?

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993856.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2564

I'm quite stunned -- it would simply be The Best Thing Ever.

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is, 34 years after its publication, one of the most intelligent, compassionate pieces of (science) fiction ever written. When Alien out in 1979, I used to think what a great job he'd do it it. I can hardly belive it's going to happen.

Last week, the possibility of a new Thomas Pynchon novel, and now this? If I'm this lucky at the moment, look out for headlines that Russell Brand has contracted Ebola, and bizarrely, every single recording or trace him ever made has been coincidentally lost. Though since the Catholic Church has officially admited that god didn't create man then I shouldn't expect too much.

40

So, yesterday I was 40. You kind of forget, in the angst of it, that your mother was probably having a bit of a day of it too. In fact, I'm almost certain my mother remembers more of it than I do, but I forgot to ask.

Ses and I saw the morning run away from us until we were out in the midday meat trucks of Jutland, heading to the grey coast.

We saw some 2000 year old guy, better preserved than me; how would this man have felt, with no concept of foreign nations or money, if he'd known that he would have a museum constructed around him.

And then afterwards we take a low-risk walk around ancient woods and then home via the beach and an improbably good Mexican restaurant in Vejle. It would seem I have eaten five three burritos in the past five days.

This was all via a very long detour to an amusingly-named town just because we thought we were hilarious.

And then home -- phonecalls and emails, Champagne and some DVDs, Stanley wondering if this good cheer would mean tuna. Which of course it did.

Things I Saw This Week

I've been in the US this week, working. These trips are always strange for me as the slight cultural differences and distance, and the time zone, make me feel as if I'm travelling through some hyper-real simulation.

So that's where he parks.

I can't remember if this is sunrise or sunset. It's possibly both.


Lost on the delightfully-named Asylum Avenue.

Flair.

I treated myself to an ice-cream - the hotel is shown to provide some idea of scale.

Edmonds and I

Their excellent Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/) tell me that if you Google "Noel Edmonds", my site is the 139th most popular referrer. 132nd if you're looking for Keith Chegwin. That certainly was an alarming unintended consequence.

Oh, wait a minute ... I've just made it worse, haven't I?

1. surreal	56
2. lovatt	2
3. andrew steenhoff	9
4. noel edmonds	139
5. arne jacobsen	180
6. keith chegwin	132
7. rate my	261
8. futuristic space stage	113

Cat House on the Kings

A cage-less cat sanctuary for 700 cats on 12 acres of land. All of them are up for adoption, but if I was a cat I'd be completely bummed out to be "rescued" from Cat Heaven. What crazy old lady could possibly resist leaving all her money to this cat home?

http://www.cathouseonthekings.com/

City Limits

Superb short film for the very talented Alake Riley.

"Hidden in the underground depths of the damp, abandoned Boomtown tube station, we meet MARLEY. An inner-city kid with big plans to set-up one of the city's coolest underground broadcasts. It will be called Boomtown D.U.B. (digital underground broadcast)."

"Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult."

Exploring

We seem to be getting out and about a bit more now that we have a car. There's a stretch of beach about 15 minutes from our house (or 30 minutes, depending on how many wrong turns we take on the way there), that we seem fascinated by for no reason.

It might be because the shop sells fairly decent ice cream or the place next door's over-priced chips are pretty good (note to self: bring own ketchup next time). Generally we just go there for an hour and walk up and down a bit.

The light is nice, and there's something very odd and transient about places like this. I want to visit it in the winter, in the snow, to see if it still exists.

And then, suddenly, we're home -- a few fields, some traffic, and there's Stanley wondering where we go and come back with different smells. I'd like to take him there, really, because I'd like him to know that there is such a thing as the sea.

I think it would really appeal to him. But of course, he might run off and get lost amongst the summerhouses -- though I can imagine him sitting there, on the beach just having a stare at little boats and far islands and thinking "WTF!" in his strange cat-like way.

Apocalyptic Danish Beach

Some photographs taken in the beach near Nymindegab on 2008-08-09. It was very windy, so I took some of the pictures low down to show the erosion shadows behind the pebbles.

I'm using Google Analytics...

... so I can see more information about the three or four people who visit my site every year.

https://www.google.com/analytics/

It was pretty easy to do - even a Muppet like me managed to copy the JavaScript and paste it in my Blogger template at the beginning of the tag.

The dashboard is a Flash object, but it's pretty cool and has a lot of features. Behold its emptiness!

Thank you.

Dear Fritz -

I know this is sheer anthropomorphism , but it's helping me and you'll never know or understand anyway; the internet was only something you sat in front of, blocking the view.

I just wanted to say "thank you". You brought so much happiness to our little family unit, you could never possibly have comprehended how grateful I was for all the moments we spent together. Sadly however, there were just not to be very many of them.

I used to like squeezing your paws, though you weren't too keen on that. I liked how you'd greet me with a face-full of cat nose followed by a cheek rub, it was like a kiss hello (even though you were really just marking me as your property, but that's OK. Perhaps that's all a kiss really is. Some anthropologists and I, well, we don't know either). You were a source of love and amusement, purring and fun for all of us.

I had hoped to be sitting with you in the garden, dozing on the sofa with you, or just hanging around with you for years to come, to be 50 and stroking your ears, but I now know that you won't be coming home with a meow or just suddenly appearing on the sofa.

Goodbye, little friend. We miss you and will always think of you.

Books that Didn't Change My Life

All this "Books that Changed My Life" business made me think of the others that I'd read which are often touted as life changing, but just didn't do it for me. So, here are the books that didn't change my life, and the year that they didn't change it.

The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien - age 13
I enjoyed it, but it was just an interesting story weighed down by, well, lore. It should have just been called Lore of the Rings.

The Stranger - Albert Camus - age 24
Mersault kills a guy, waits to be executed. I wasn't much of a Cure fan either. There are far better examples of absurdist fiction. In fact, it's not even the best Camus novel - that's The Plague.

Harry Potter - Joanne Rowling - age 27
I don't really see this as a book - more a list of things that happened with a lot of tacked-on exposition at the end to paper over the many cracks. The first volume killed all further desire to read any of later lists. Really, if you want some children's fantasy that isn't insulting and lazy, read Philip Pullman. "But it gets kids to read!" argue people. True, but it's a shame it's not as well-written as a cereal packet.

Atlas Shrugged etc - Ayn Rand - age 30
People who say that Rand changed their life are just saying "I don't see why I should help or not exploit people and a book gave me legitimacy."

Books that Changed Your Life - Now with bonus Perec!

I was browsing around the other day and saw the usual "list of books that changed your life" and must say I was very disappointed with the sheer predictability of those selected. Life-changing book lists always seem to incorporate: The New Testament, Ayn Rand, Camus' The Stranger, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and that dross ejected by J K Rowling. There were no surprises (other than "Oh - people still think they can impress people by saying that they've read Camus"), and I would have love to have been surprised by something honest and unexpected on that list -- ("Hey, Watership Down *is* deeply inspiring now you come to mention it!").

Here's mine, with my age at the time because when is just as important as what.

The Tree Wakers - Keith Clare - age 7
The first proper novel I remember reading (I'd read some Paddington beforehand and can't say it changed my life much), it's extremely eerie and captures the otherworldliness of Kew perfectly. When, as an adult, I finally saw the Pagoda I was immediately brought back to the book. I hunted a copy down a copy a couple of years ago and it's still creepy.

Watership Down - Richard Adams - age 8
It was hefty, it had rabbits on the cover and I was 8 years old with limited browsing time left in the library. The longest thing I'd read up to that point, I learned a lot about language, plot structure and snares. When, after I read it, I discovered that a film was being made, that private world I'd occupied was suddenly exposed and my head nearly exploded with the synchronicity of it. I still think of Keehar fondly.

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - age 10
Utterly gripping and with proper science, this crams a lot in a complicated story - an allegory of the Vietnam war, it clearly demonstrates that conflict is horrible, foolish and an inescapable feature of Humankind.

The New Testament - various - age 11
Yes, it did change my life - this was the book that made me an atheist. Already with strong suspicions, I thought I would go to one of the source books to see if it added any evidence to a shaky foundation for a cult. Quite the opposite, all the flaws of religion were exposed; suddenly I was free to live my life in a meaningful way. I consider it the book for atheists everywhere who want to know more.

Dune - Frank Herbert - age 15
Even to this day, I can't say for sure that I understand the subtleties of Frank Herbert's masterpiece - but that's OK because none of the people who have filmed it got them either. A true rarity in that it has a deeply philosophical plot, describes a detailed world and society, yet never allows the story to be bogged down in details. Instead, the unforgettable characters and concepts carry it along.

UBIK - Philip K Dick - age 18
What can I say about UBIK that's not been said before? There's a strong case for it being the best PKD novel, it certainly has some of his best-realized characters and will keep you guessing for a long time.

Life, a User's Manual - Georges Perec - age 19
Completely different to anything I'd read up until the time or since - each chapter is a description of a different apartment within a Parisian block, developed according to a Euler Square, and describes a snapshot of life within it at one moment, in all 100 apartments, shortly before 8pm on June 23rd 1975. I kid you not. Despite there being no motion, there are 100 interlinking stories here, like looking at a photograph of an event unfolding.

Swimming to Cambodia - Spalding Gray - age 20
Or "I hate that existential idiot" as an ex once described him. Spalding's monologues showed what a unique and beautiful person he was, pushed and dragged this way and that by the encounters that he invited, lured upon himself. Everyone can see a little of themselves in his neuroses and experiences, but at the same time he takes it to new extremes.

The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker - age 22
The musings of a guy as he takes the escalator back to his office after going out at lunchtime to buy a shoelace and some milk. Covers drinking straws, model aeroplanes, fraying, the postal service. Gave me a key "Wow - other people think like that too" moment.

A Fan's Notes - Frederick Exley - age 24
Another from the genre of "horribly honest, admitting things no person should ever admit" books. This semi-auto biographical account is a confession of a life spent looking for a purpose and then finding it in writing. And pissing people off.

Ulysses - James Joyce - age 24/25/26
This took several attempts and a number of other books as assistance, but I got there in the end and it was wonderful. It contains a beautiful and intricate world where logic seems sometimes optional but it makes sense eventually. The last chapter, consisting of Molly Bloom's soliloquy, is one of the most dazzling things in the English language - and the final sentence, at 4391 words, is captivating.

Winterdance - Gary Poulsen - age 27
Poulsen decides that he wants to write about the Iditarod and then comes to the conclusion that the best way to do this is to race in it - by training his own team of dogs and living in a kennel with them. With angry moose, wolves, weather and what have you he goes through hell and you feel it with him. You will probably read this in one sitting - because you have to know what happens to him.

Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon - age 28
"My goodness - you can read Pynchon" I consider this the starter novel for people who want to read Thomas Pynchon, over and above The Crying of Lot 49. It has all the scope, bad jokes and cheese-rolling of his more notorious works, but you can just swim up a couple of levels and read it as the story of two guys out surveying. A handy book to read beforehand is Dava Sobel's Longitude.

Underworld - Don deLillo - age 30
Good grief this book is incredible - I may never read anything that moves me more, and I'm actually OK with that, I'm happy that it's this one. A gigantic poem about longing disguised as a novel, when I closed it after finishing it, I knew I was in a new stage of my life.

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson - age 31
It takes a good piece of fiction to finally get me to understand the ζ-function where several non-fiction books and plump, crotch-scratching maths teachers* have failed. And then there's the rest of the book, which is smart, funny and, being Stephenson, has a weak ending.

Scissors and Comb Haircutting - Bob Ohnstad - age 38
I've not actually read this, but my wife has - and this isn't "Books I've read that Changed My Life." This book changed my life because I never have to spend time at the barbers being asked questions about why I don't understand football.

Kindred - Octavia Butler - age 39
Since I am now this huge mass of experiences, behaviours and opinions, built up in layers like sediment, in motion since the Sixties, it requires considerable force to change a life this far along. This book did it, by prompting me to ask a lot of questions about identity and to search out other books in the small, but rewarding, field of African-American Feminist Science Fiction.

Next up, Books that Didn't Change My Life.

* His own crotch. It wasn't that sort of school.

Best Piece of Street Furniture Ever

I think it's supposed to be advertising a sausage vendor, but there wasn't actually one nearby.

This Evening, in the Garden

Tonight, after a day of failing to make much progress on the device I'm trying to create*, I decide to take a little walk around the garden to see what was going on.

Not much, as it turns out, but things are growing and there was some random cat activity.

* I'm working on a device that allows you to reach down the phone and actually strangle someone. So far it's a big box with a USB interface that you post to your recipient to put their head in, but I expect some breakthroughs in miniaturization.

Send Your Name to the Moon

NASA will be launching the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later this year - and you can send your name with it:

http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php

My New Favourite Website

http://www.evolutioniscool.com/

Is this my ultimate TV series?

"Muppetstar Galactica"

I think it probably is.

Beardyman: Kitchen Diaries

He's awesome.

Seem to be on a bit of a YouTube kick today. Will actually write something at some point rather than just linking to funny vids.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

The Empire Strikes Back, Sweded

This is even better than the last one.



Did you know that George Lucas said, earlier this year, that Empire was the worst of the Star Wars films?

George talks nonsense

Man Plays Cantina Theme Tune on His Hands

I'm sort of impressed, in a scared sort of way. Apparently, the correct name for these sort of people is "manualist". That's good to know as I'd all sorts of other words in mind that were different.