Option Click

In Tiger, in the Finder, to get a single "Get Info" box for several documents, or to open several documents in an application you can use the option (alt) button when you go to file (or right click) on the selected items
"Open With" turns into "Always Open With".
"Get Info" turns into "Show Inspector".



It's easy to begin books, I have begun four at the moment though i am only really reading two of them. If you abandon a book for long enough when you return to it you won't have a clue what's going on when you finally pick up where the bookmark tells you you left off. I'm trying to finish at least one of the books before the end of the year; that is in about a day and a half. It's a good book that can suck you through past the lost momentum that emerges after 30 or so pages. If it's a "rollocking good read" then it never loses any momentum in the first place. I find that Margaret Atwood's novels and short stories are in the "rollocking good read" category; also Edith Wharton and Michele Roberts (writers I chose because I have been reading them recently).

More Links 31st Dec 2005

coolhunting.com interesting things - design, pop culture etc.
shoes bearing microprocessors
nice "urban gear" (whatever that is)
dot software - some nice Mac software that is now freeware. Aquaruler is useful.

A few links again

Here I am, back once again for the renegade master.
I have some links and stuff tat I have been gathering all this time, but I have either forgotten them or I haven't the energy to get over this inertia.
So a few links that aren't representative of much except what I can recall right now.

ODM Watches - very lovely,interesting watches.
I decided to buy ecto, blogging client. It's all good.
Top 100 downloaded texts on Project Gutenberg.
From the channel 4 programme Demolition a website with some related architectural links.
Desperate Housewives Spoilers?

Ok I know

I said I wouldn't be posting, but lookey at del.icio.us. There are some fantastic new features, really I am impressed.

No Posts

The reason for the lack of posts is that I am unwell. Yes for this long. And being unwell I have neither the inclination to write or anything worth writing about. These are good reasons for not posting. God knows how long this unwellness will last, not long I hope as it is, obviously, unpleasant.
And no, it is not Avian Flu.

Bye bye for now,
KCanard.

The wanderer returns

after having been no-where. That should I guess be "The waddler returns". I have been busy doing things that have amounted to very little and it all seems very futile. I am beginning to miss the duck life I have left behind, out on the pond. But there are upsides, for instance pictures of Jelly Belly sweets for me to salivate over at Cybercandy and shopbox UK it is a kind of pornography I tell you.
Chocolate buttons is hardcore. And the cheapest I've found for Jellybelly. Though no purchase-y yet, just for ogling purposes. I don't think all that sugar is any good for ducks. Ah, well.

I have lots of links about Harajuku and stuff, I can't face posting them now, perhaps in the next post?

that was quite a rubbish entry eh?
Try this instead.

Titles really are difficult when you don't have a topic

OK I have lapsed.
It has been more than a week since my last webblog entry.
Here are a few links.

Gamespot article Redefining games. how academia is reshaping the games of the future

ubio.org a community effort to create a catalogue of all known living and extinct organisms. Wow, wot a task.

there's and eyeTV update (1.8.3)

I haven't been doing much webbing (this has nothing to do with my feet, I am referring to the Internet). I have been trying to get some things done.

I have seen the iPod nano and I must say I find it, as I thought I might, unimpressive. which is disappointing. When I first saw the G2 iPod minis i was bowled over. Ah well, maybe the next thing they release will be fantastic. They seem rather flimsy to me. And the ones in the shop already are in a fairly ropey state. The colour screen is impressive though, that I liked. I think It might be the shape I don't like, the corners seem too round for the width, or something like that. I like the shape of the iPod, it looks in better proportion, to these bird eyes.

I have been going about here and there and consequently am too tired to "go out", that is for (supposed) pleasurable times. Though I have rarely had pleasurable time when I have been "out", it's usually a dull experience. Though I am in fine feather at the moment, so maybe I will find the drive to get up out of this reluctance and "go out".

Happy Hatchday

It's my hatchday today. I went to see my friends and took them some things, grain, seed and bread for those who wanted it. I didn't stay long with them though, they were quite boisterous today.
Other things. I can't remember what sites I have been visiting recently. Obviously nothing too amaing, or maybe not. I have a link to the site of someone I met. It's their clothing company site, romanceclothing.co.uk
Oh, I've been browsing quite a bit on everything2

A while back a human friend of mine threw a party for me, and one of the things he had out on the buffet table were duck slices, and though I understand this was for the other, human, guests I still found it somewhat disturbing. He later apologised, the fact that I am a duck, he said, had quite slipped his mind.

Links for 14th September 2005

Lookey here at The New Guardian (which you can read online till the 26th Sept.)


Last weekend I went to Artsfest in Birmingham. Which says that it is - "ArtsFest 2005 - The Largest Free Arts Festival in the U.K."
I saw a band called elliot jack play few songs at the Mailbox, and I got a promo CD.
I saw Cassava too.
Both were enjoyable, Cassava were very fun. I saw some other bands/musicians too. Made me want to make music.
I later watched 3 hrs of short films which was great. It has spurred me on to seeing more short films. It's a fantastic medium. I might be going to 7Inch Cinema which takes place at the Rainbow in Digbeth. Later this month. There's also some things at the mac that look good. My artsitc senses have been revived.
Oh, here is a link to a desktop picture I did in Illustrataor (CS) with a bit of 'shop afterwards. I love Illustrator, though I had a difficult time starting out and learning to use it. It's not as intuitive as Photoshop. I haven't used the CS2 version though, have to look that up.

And I am still flapping about trying to learn about too many things at once. It's not simple trying to figure things out just from books and the net/web.
I've been listening to a lot of Sonic Youth recently. (look, their site is Firefox optimised, a rare sight for me.)
And listening to more Radio 4 too.

Again I say Hey

The Mighty Boosh's new series is growing on me. I miss the zooniverse, I don't like some of the episodes this series, though episode 3 and episode 5 I love.

The melancholia hasn't left me. I feel not depressed, just sad.

I've added some links to the sidebar. WHYME podcast and website. WHYME = "The worst music you've ever heard", which is an absolutely fantastic podcast, with consistently wonderful music. I don't think I've ever heard a song on this show that I haven't liked. The Bad news Bats were fantastic with "Destroy the Motherbrain" which is apparently about Super Meteroid.

There's also a link to unmediated.org.
I've been photoshopping and iconmaking (Ok, - many variations on one icon). I might put these up, do a lnk to them in my next post. They are halfway decent in comparison to the stuff I've done in the past.

My router is playing up again. I keep having to restart it and therefore reset the password. Which is irritating to say the least.

iTunes, iPod and some Melancholia

iTunes 5 out there now for download. Am liking the playlist folders.

What of the ipod mini? Are they going for an all white line up? Like those pretty lollipop iMacs, the multicoloured mini's are gone from the Apple site, well for the present anyway. I prefer the look of the mini to this nano thing.(though I will be going to the Apple store soon to have a gander (oh the punnery)).
iPod pico next? some kind of 10GB little iPod? Cos there's a gap at the mo between 4 and 20 GB. For me 4 is too small and that 20GB is too big for my pocket. I feel perhaps some of these new bigger tiny drives will be featuing in a smaller iPod soon. I "feel" - make that I would really like.

links
Om Malik's 10MacApps
good GUI practice (and theory) at asktog.com
I'm having a look at this timer thing. ("Designer's time clock")

The line in a Belle and Sebastian song "everyone she knew thought she was beautiful, only slightly mental". wonderful lyrics.

A year is nothing anymore. i am a young duck and i feel so old. I feel that I am waiting to live, in a queue and soon I will be dead standing in line. I don't know what I'm waiting for. Permission or something.

The nights are drawing in. It's reminding me of last year and that is sucking happiness from me. I remember when the long nights used to seem mysterious and exciting. Beautiful and cosy. Now they make me melancholy. Have you ever seen duck weep?

In the spring the lengthening days depress me; in late summer the shrinking daylight depresses me. today is the first day this summer I have really felt that winter is on the way. This should be a good thing, as I like Winter.
I don't think listening to Belle and Sebastian is helping. I'm going to try the Distillers.

Sometimes I think I'm stuck in the past.

Watch and Colour links

I met an internet friend for the 1st time in the flesh a few days ago. My duckiness didn't seem to bother this person at all.

I have been looking at watches (useless to me I know, but there's a wonder in some of these watches. Especially the Phillpe Starck ones.
Starck one
Starck two
other one
Fossil watches site
red LCD?

And today I have been playing with colours for hours. In Illustrator and Photoshop. Trying to really understand this additive colour idea.
Fun web colour thing and the home page
More colour spaces
Visibone Charts
These are mainly websafe colour charts, because that, I find is a simple way to go about trying to understand how the colours mix 'n all.

I took out a book from the local library on the basics of TCP/IP. I have way too much to read as usual. I am feeling quite lax at all this reading I haven't been doing.

More Things 03/09/05

A friend of mine went to went to a MMUG meeting and was not uninterested.
Found this binary date thing The Mac Binary Clock . I find it a tad confusing as the seconds are at the top, but I shall get used to it. Those "LEDs" are massive though, slightly too massive for my liking. (they can be substituted with Apple shapes using the options button at the bottom).

The Zen of CSS Design which i have received from Amazon.co.uk is a wonderful book. I am savouring it and holding it as inspiration to go and look over all that CSS basic stuff. It has given me a kick up the cloaca.
The CSS Zen garden is rather fab too.
More Zen Garden designs are here.

A Comment?

I am shocked.
I have a comment. (And this one isn't one that I left for myself, although at first I thought it was.)
And thanks to the comment-ator (it seems to be someone connected with stodge.org where Dan Wilson's shows are web-hosted, perhaps they were googling or somesuch thing.) I am now aware of the Resonance FM podcasts. I would like to thank whoever this being is, but alas they will probably never see this.

TextEdit and Links for 30th August 2005

I've been looking at TextEdit "What's new" in the Help files after noticing the "complete" option in the edit menu, which if you invoke in the middle of a word (i.e. after having typed a couple of letters to give it something to go on) will give you a pop up list of words to choose from. This might be good for spelling purposes, or laziness inclination. They keyboard shortcut is option escape. It's something new to play with. These little discoveries are pleasing. Like the discovery that Safari can now import and export bookmarks at long last. Tiger has done well.
TextEdit can now do tables, lists, page breaks and numbering, also clickable weblinks. (I'm not sure if that last one was in Panther). All this is for rich text, bien sur.

A few links I have found interesting:

www.simplebits.com webby blog I had a look at recently

thinkgeek web-safe colours poster

amyjewelry.com jewellery made from everyday objects

www.elsewares.com wonderful shop selling stuff from independent designers - clothes, jewellery, other objects - all sorts

www.spreadshirt.net have your own design put on a range of tops etc.

modsquare.com electronic music site. Looks interesting, I have yet to delve deep into this place. Though I can't delve that deep, I am not a diving duck.

It's been a while

I bought a CD single of Ella Guru. I think it is some kind of promo, "Augustus Golden". Which I like a lot. Twas a pound from the Oasis, a fantastic shop in Birmingham (Corporation Street). It is not Oasis the high street chain a distinction which at times causes confusion. I also found out that there's a shop in there that sells Crazy Color hair dye. I haven't even been able to find this brand for sale ont' net (Ah, having said that, I see they have an online shop). There's also a shop in the Oasis that sells, among other things, plectrum earrings, necklaces, bracelets that kind of thing, they have a shop on Ebay I love kitsch 2004/5?.

Bought some GCSE and AS level books yesterday, maths and fizzics. I haven't had time to look properly at all the library books I have, though I have almost finished the "Networking for Dummies" which is a nice simple read. I am on the last chapter which at the moment is explaining TCP/IP basics. Subnet masking and that kind of thing. There is an O'Reilly book on TCP/IP (or this) but I can't really be that in depth right now with all this other stuff I am to be getting on with.

I ordered The Zen Garden of CSS from Amazon, I've looked at it in Waterstones in town and it looks like inspiring stuff. The Website is there too, with some interesting CSS layouts. Amazon is of course cheaper than Waterstones, though I did spend twenty quid in Waterstones, I'm not just using them as a showroom. The Art of Photoshop is another good looking book that I have my eye on.

Good stuff 15th August 2005

Really, unmediated and their del.icio.us tag are so fine, so fine they blow my mind.

Through them i have made some lovely discoveries. today I found:
DTV (beta) which is a rss video thing. Like videocasting. i am trying this out right now, the video, as you would expect takes a while to download unless it is very short. Oh and it's for OS X 10.3+.

QTAmateur for MacOS X there is another Quick Time thing called amateur which is an uncrippled Quick Time written in Java but I haven't tried this yet. Oh that one aint finished yet. QT Amateur allows you to encode files, which Quick Time non-pro doesn't.

Other things:

odeo Podcast listings

The Mozilla corporation! Mozilla have themselves a corporation.
"The Mozilla Corporation will have approximately 36 employees" and their presence will be at a .com website (as opposed to the .org one)

NetBSD toaster anyone? Very pretty toaster too. Aah embedded software is the future! (heh, heh)

The web really isn't chaotic enough, it's becoming very demographics led I feel. I want more randomness, less organised-ness in areas where randomness would be beneficial.
It's 21:00 and dark already. I liked the long days. and when it is Winter I like the long nights.
I like the idea of a black and white desktop: Black and white Desktop picture with black and white desktop icons. If I get around to doing it I will post a picture.

I need to get in touch with my duck friends soon. I haven't seen them in a while and sometimes this human world is too exhausting and too full of stupid constrictions for me.

Widgets

So Dashboard widgets are just little webpages,
So I've heard said about 100 times.
But here it is, the calculator in Firefox.



Can't use it as a calculator, but there it is. Some of the simpler Widgets you can view and use as if they were webpages, in your browser, Oblique, for example.

Some links 8th Aug 2005

ecto. Very Nice blogging client that I am at this moment trying out. (although the world is already more than aware of it so it seems). kung-foo.tv is the main portal.
To blog is a verb, but to weblog is not... is it?
How to hear digital radio stations with EyeTV 410 (and perhaps the 400)
Dashboard Widgets for Tiger
Wikipedia dashboard widget
Oblique widget (and SeeSS)
Taco Widgets site
Some flickr stuff jimsk mr_fabulous interesting phots on flickr
I have followed this tutorial and have installed Textpattern on my Powerbook still aint managed to get all the stuff working correctly though though this is due to me not the tutorial.
I have been going through some simple tutorials at the W3C Schools online site. There are introductions to all sortsa web things. Like Javascript, PHP, Apache, SQL, so it says, but I haven't looked at that section. With a page where ou can download the internet
Looking again at http://www.unmediated.org/ again, which really is a fantastic site. A true portal... into another dimension? no.

I have been listening to Elliot Smith's song Farewell to a Friend over and over. Though I misheard quite a few of the lyrics I realised when I checked them out, in the usual humourous lyrics mishearing way. Addicted to that song at the moment. I have a habit of not using pronouns which I'm trying to correct. Must be the way thoughts run through my head, though funnily enough I don't think it happens so much when writing by hand.

I really like this link I found on unmediated.org vlogging talking points which the finder discovered through del.icio.us, I am discovering how wonderful it is every day.

Now I've sounded as though I have been active and doing things I can stop and continue doing nothing and trying to call it something. Everything takes me far too long. And that I am a duck in a human world is no excuse.

Changes

I am in the process of making some template changes, the first thing to change is the background, which is now a gradiant bluey thing, whereas before it was deep red.
Other things will follow. I am having to revivify my CSS and Photshopery.

Ah' Been Doin' Things

I took out lots of books from the library again, but this time from the local library, not the Birmingham Central Library. One AS level computing, which doesn't seem very well written, but I have gone throught that making the best of it. Been looking up things on the net to help
me. I am liking all this binary, hex, octal, buisiness - except my 16 and 256 times table aren't very good.
Among the other books are a guide to networking (basic stuff) and XML. Now i have too many books to read, but I quite like it that way. There are also books on maths and physics.
Yesterday I went to St. Paul's church
and St. Chad's Cathedral in Birmingham for the first time and discovered that the latter was designed and built by Pugin, and Mathew Bolton used to frequent the former.


I received Tongue under a Ton of Nine Volters by Meadow House. It's Dan Wilson's Hellebore Shew CD. The artwork on the cover is as fantastic as the songs. I bought it from the Resonance 104.4 online shop. A tenner.

Some of the pigeons around the city centre look very ill: feather battered, sluggish and waddling. Waddling isn't the pigeon way. It's the duck way, but not the pigeon way.

Conversion Time

I have moved my old laptop (3 years old) that I rarely ever use, over to Debian GNU/Linux. Things are as they usually are with a new OS, pretty bewildering, I mean just that feeling of not being at home with your usual OS. When I first got my iMac I felt very not at home as I'd never used a Mac before. Now very ill at ease moving away from my beloved Mac (even in OS 9) to Windows or Linux. I'm still having to figure some things out with Debian. I've got it running all the nice GUIs that come with the CDs (which are available for download here, I used the BitTorrent download option. And there is an FAQ on all that.) so I am still trying to figure things out with it. I had to edit a file to get it to display my screen resolution correctly... Erm And the sound I haven't got working, but most importantly my laptop's network card is working, even though the security updates to Debian aren't. anyway, I've only been using it for 10 or so hours, but it's all looking good so far. It's using UNIX on the Mac and Fink especially that really got me around to doing this. So as things are at present I have a GNU/Linux - Windows - Mac setup here. Which makes me sound way more competent with all those OSs than I actually am.

I am thinking of buying a digital camera. I saw a seagull on the grass outside Birmingham cathedral trying to rip pieces of flesh out of two large salmon fish heads, and putting up a good fight in its efforts to do so. Right then i yearned to take several photographs, and the absence of a camera seemed like an itch you long to scratch.
A simple camera, not an SLR-ish one, which I would get had I the funds. The Canon Ixus 50 looks quite nice. At Amazon for around 220 quid. Time to start saving? looking over cameras on the internet gets you into a hell of confusion, I have no idea how to choose. Sites like this one are helpful.

A few/many links

Within the past few days I have been further exploring basic UNIX commands (ftp, comparing files, listing differences in files with various commands etc.) and XML. I have put up a test XML file. I'll be adding this entry to it. Probably won't keep going with it. Well not in that form. I might try the blogger atom xml feed thang.

Recieved an old Rough Trade 7 inch this morning. From Backbeat Records . It's a Double A side by Sweet Jesus - "Honey Loving Honey" and "Sisterfy". I should get myself a new record player, this old one aint' up to much - but it's not too bad, perhaps just a new needle. This 7 inch really reminds me of The Jesus and Mary Chain (Jesus and the Mary Chain?), maybe it's something to do with the drumbeat, maybe it's the word "Jesus" in the band's name. There is a smidgen about Sweet Jesus and other 90s (e.g. Tiger, Orange Juice, The Hinnies)Bands at www.birdpoo.co.uk. A great domain name.

Have been listening again to some episodes of the wonderous Hellebore Shew. The 27 programmes are up there for download or streaming. (.mp3 and .ogg)

Have been reading through the Maczealots site. It's a fantastic looking site (appearance and information wise), it has lots of useful tutorials, interesting articles and reviews.


www.poignantguide.net/ruby
I've just started reading through this - "Why's poignant guide to ruby." I started reading this cos the google snippet said the guide involving cartoon foxes.
"Why" (the author) makes ruby sound like art and zen and a new, pure way of thinking. His enthusiasm is exciting. The writer mentions Beck and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci caught my eye when I was skimming it, deciding whether to read it ir not. That and the cartoon foxes.

OK. That's all.
Oh, I've also added a favicon. I don't know if it will display in all browsers though.

Links for today

George Monbiot's site Great political commentary.
The burgeoning Wikibooks looks interesting et useful.
Unmediated.org "Tracking the tools that decentralize the media". Hard and software. Lots of links to follow up here. Wonderful.
Had a link to Slashdot about the EU Software patent bill, but can't find it again, so here is the Register on it instead.

Also been reading books I got from the library. I have a special arrangement where they allow my ducky self to be a member; I have to take a human with me, so I borrow by proxy, so I guess I am not really an actual member.
The books are on "A" level physics ("could do better" at that), Visual Quickstart guides to UNIX and C programming. I have delusions of being adept with computers (OS X at any rate). A maths for science book, and a book on Applescript. I haven't yet finished Catch-22 as all I've been reading lately is computer or maths/science related. Oh and a bit of music.

It's like some kind of back to school thing going on. I am constantly sleepy. I should give all this up and go back to the pond with my old friends. I wonder if this is a worthwhile way to go about things. I'm Starting to think the lake/pond way of living seems quite appealing.

Some good learning to be had on the bbc. Here
Some sections on GCSES, A level, and other stuff. Here
I shall be revising and expanding some things I do know and learning some things I don't.

My god. There is far too much that I don't know.
I shall hide my head under my wing. S'too much.

Software

a Binary Clock; helped me learn a bit of binary.
from the makers of Lonesome Electric Chicken

Also have been looking around the O'Reilly macdev site. Lots of good stuff there.

iTunes 4.9

I've just downloaded iTunes 4.9 via software update, but i don't see any mention of it on the apple site. There they are still on about iTunes 4.8? Hmmmm. Ah! it is here

iTunes 4.9 has basic support for podacst subscription.

A band called Calamateur have an album out which you can download for free from the Autoclave records website on this page. I am at this very moment downloading it and will be giving it a listen.

This week I have lots of magazines to read.
"is this music" a scottish music mag with cd. Interviews with members of Bis (who are now Data Panik, and of Monica Queen from Belle and Sebastian, and lots of mini album reviews)
Private Eye
New Scientist (previous issue about the implications of quantum experiments)
Macworld
Sound on Sound
I haven't bought magazines for quite some time, now a surfeit. Haven't the stamina to read them all – my poor wings.

They say rain a plenty is "weather for ducks" and I for one love a good downpour. My friends however do not. And another thing - my geese friend's little goslings aren't so little any more.

Have decided to use del.icio.us so here's a link. My list of bookmarks is growing slowly.
I have found a few good websites, maybe will post links in next post.

Lovely Lovely OS X Apps

I have been trying out some lovely applications recently.
Links:
Quicksilver
Bits on Wheels
Path Finder

the most useful is Quicksilver  (which I previously knew the name of, but didn't know what it was.)
It's a launcher and searcher thing that works through typing; activate (with a modifiable shortcut) then type the first few letters of a folder/app/thing, you can then choose different actions to perform on this thing. That is the basic premise, but plug-ins allow you to do things like search your bookmarks and display iTunes artwork, (and presumable things that i can't even conceive of yet as I've only had it a day) Oh yes and it's FREEWARE.

The most exciting is Bits on Wheels

A BitTorrent client, with lots of features (list of peers and up/down, list of files and percentage complete, total number of pieces in a file, amount you have left to get etc.). But the most exciting of these (for me anyway) is the visualisation of the BitTorrent uploading/downloading/sharing business. The Swarm Tab shows displays yourself as a box in the centre of a circle being orbited by other boxes to whom you are down/uploading. While you download your box fills up with blueness, an indication of how much of the total download you have, when you have the total file and are seeding the box and the background become red indicating you have all the pieces. There are also other visualisations going on here : the lines from you to the peers indicate the direction on the flow (up/down) and the speed and other things that again, I haven't figured out yet. Also FREEWARE, but not, it notes open source.

Just having a look at Path Finder which says it is a"pro-finder" thing, the finder plus a whole loada things. Screen Capture, favourites, a list of open apps in the Menu Bar, Trash on Desktop, open in Terminal. You can do things to files: compress images, email files, view files in Hex form, Create Disc Images. I've only had it for about and hour yet, so still exploring. this is Shareware - timed trial for, i think it's 21 days. $34, which is about £18
p.s. also has a great Drop Stack area where you can drop files so you can transfer them later to wherever you like, without having to drag them all over the place or have multiple finder windows open.

Stuff

I bought a copy of "They F*** You Up" (yes that is it's title, asterisks and all) by Oliver James which had been reduced as sommat weird going on with the last few pages and the way they were cut. Title taken from that most memorable of Philip Larkin poems. It's a nice hard back book, I've been reading it and it's quite interesting. His idea in this book is that the way your parents related to you due to various factors (gender, birth order, whether you were a favoured/unfavoured child, the state of family fortunes at the time you were born, etc - you get the idea) has a lot more influence on your personality than most people believe. He says of nature/nurture it's 50/50, but traits that we see as inherent as part of of our character he says are to do with the way we have learned to behave as we have grown up. For example, he suggests that firstborns are more likely to endorse their parent's sense of morality than are lastborns who must learn individuality to gain their parents' attention. Also says that "genius" children are almost always hothoused, and it is this hothousing that brings out that level of exceptional-ness. And similarly with negativity. I won't go on any more. but you get the idea. Quite interesting. I'm about a quarter of the way through. And am still reading Catch 22, though have kind of stopped in order to read this.

Big Brother, I have really lost interest. But as E4 is now on Freeview. I have been watching a bit of that. At the moment is seems to be all Friends, Sex and the City, The OC and Hollyoaks. First three fine, last one not fine; actually I don't know whether the last one is anygood as i haven't watched it since I was at school as it got very annoying and depressing, it used to be a very light, silly once or twice a week thing now I think it's C4 have thrusted soap status on it after the demise of Brookside. Oh and Big brother of course. Oh and of course there is a lot of Big Brother on E4.

Springwatch with Bill Oddie on BBC2 has been great. lots of newborn birds to watch, and their parents. On yesterday's programme there were many ducks. Including the eider duck. No mallards though.

The Devil Bites Dirty...

we wax and wane (It's a Cocteau Twins lyric, at least I think those are the words, who knoweth?).

Apple. Intel.
Need I say more? Read a lot about it on fora, been thinking too much about it, feeling apprehensive about my lovely puters that may become defunct more quickly than I imagined, or may not. How long before the the next os upgrade is not compatible with ye olde computers? What will the Apple line up of 2 or 3 years into the future look like? What will the prices be like? What will OS XI (or whatever they are going to call it) be like and how will it be different to take advantage of the different processors individualities? Or perhaps it will only be 10.7 by the time that happens. STOP.

I don't want to think about it any more it is making me feel ill. I was going to take a day off thinking about it, but alas see what has not happened.

My acquaintances' little chicks are growing up very quickly. My friends the geese have four little goslings that aren't so little as they were just over a week ago.

A Wren Visits

A wren stopped by for an hour or so yesterday. Flew about a bit, had a look around and then flew off out of the window. I would have liked the wren to stay a while longer but... ahh maybe another time.

I am getting into Catch 22, and am enjoying the style of writing and the nonsensical logic of Heller. I remember watching some of the film, specifically Major Major, who when reading the book I now realise is Major Major Major Major. So far I am fascinated by the way the ideas are expressed. The overwhelming sense of it all is a pointless and farcical maze of a war, where the only people who make sense are madmen (Yossarian for example) who one character describes as the sanest of the whole lot. That kind of nonesensical logic. If English wan't my 1st language, id be wondering what the hell was going on. When i read books in french they sometimes seem like this, but that's only because I am rubbish at French.

Watched "The Thing Form Another World" yesterday. Quite a good film, all the better for being in black and white. Features a female who appeared to have the role of secretary, who is a humorous intelligent and confident character, which made a nice change from the usual characters I see in b&w horror films. But this wasn't exactly schlock. Wouldn't mind seeing it again. There's a scientific fundamentalist who tries to force the rest of the people at the Arctic station to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of the furtherance of scientific knowledge - in the form of the seemingly invincible alien vegetable man.

Another Hey

Just posting for the sake of it here. Made changes to the weblog template, the process of which almost gave me a headache, trying to figure out which classes related to which bits of text.

I have read 59 pages of Catch 22, which I have tried to read before but the book got abandoned as books do.
There was some watchable stuff on tv tonight. "Mock the Week" was good for a first episode (Rory Bremner, Dara O'Brian, Jeremy Hardy, John Oliver, Linda Smith, Hugh Dennis and a guy whose name I can't recall).
Also good was the Storville film about the McLibel case. Then Click Online about technology things and the web.

Spent too long on the 'puter. I feel sick.

hello

just tchecking