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[Mister D Nomms]

I'm watching a "documentary" called The Winged Beatle and I'm seeing everything they're showing me. There's now no reason I shouldn't believe Paul is dead. Turn me on, dead man. Or something. I'm going to spend the next couple days spotting the number 23 everywhere and practicing the accordion. This is a pre-emptive blog. Also, I'm feeling like my head's a bit muddled, so this will be an interesting weekend. Have some piracetam coming in the mail, which always puts my head back on straight. I'd use proper medicines if I were a rich man, but I'm not, so I will continue to improvise. Plus, I hate doctors.

[blanktom]

Dear Blog Thread,
                         I am kinda bummed. After working in one of the busiest restaurants in my city for a week straight pulling some pretty tough shifts (a bloo bloo) I decided to get away to my Mums by the coast for a night yesterday to get some peace and quiet, which went really well. I also arranged to then come into London (its not too far by train) this afternoon to visit a friend who lives/works here.

Thing is, he warned me yesterday that he'd have to shoot off for an hour or so at about 7.30 for a very important meeting regarding a free trip to Israel, which I completely agreed was something not to be missed and said I could entertain myself. Well he left just before 7 and gave me a key to his flat, and still hasnt got back or even contacted me yet. I'm sure he hasnt forgotten about me, but I get the feeling he just thinks he can rock up about 11 then we can go out until the wee hours, despite the fact I have to get a train at 12.30pm tomorrow then work in the evening.

I didn't really come to London to just spend the evening in a flat on my laptop, and now I am losing all the vibes I had before for going out and having a good time.

[Carl-E]

Dude, take a nap instead.  Refresh for the evening NOW. 

[blanktom]

A little while after this I just gave in and went into the city to grab some food and a couple of drinks on my own, which was actually pretty cool. Eventually he rang me just before 11, went home to get changed and got a cab from his to meet me at about midnight. We had a pretty good night in the end, but I was properly tired by the end of it!

[BeoPuppy]

Tonight we'll listen to ... Frank Boeijen.

Yeah, as a shock tactic that needs a bit of work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9zHY7NdpjQ

Not very metal.

[Patrick]

Well holy shit, color me shocked. There I was talking about Albanian patriarchy, and now here's an article about the huge momentum gain in LGBT rights advocacy in Albania, written by somebody who came to my very first gig (and then she and her partner brought their toddler over to play the next day). On HuffPost, no less. Mind: BLOWN

Tonight Troubador is playing at our beloved pizza shop in Newark, splitting a bill with two bands who have good connections to the Gilman in Berkeley. Tomorrow evening, we're trading Matt's garage for a ~*real studio*~ out in Emeryville, where we plan to finish recording our debut album. Then we take it to our good friend Sedric for mixing and mastering, and we're planning to have it available in physical form by July 1. We'll have a Kickstarter up soon, which I'll be posting places. Woo!!!

[valley_parade]

Today in a nutshell:

-Woke up outstandingly hungover
-Friend texted me about going to a tag sale advertised in the newspaper, lots of records
-Friend who said would be over shortly took an hour
-Got lost on the way
-Turns out the newspaper's a piece of shit and the tag sale was last week but they advertised it again anyway this week
-She helped me get a Mother's Day gift for my mom
-I forgot to give said gift to my mom when I was over her house
-Also grabbed N64 Rumble Pak from my old room
-Forgot it in my mom's car
-Had plans to catch up with an old comedian friend who was in town from Boston tonight
-Couldn't find a ride to the show
-He forgot his phone in Boston so I wasn't able to get a hold of him for drinks afterwards.
-Anxiety about waking up and watching my favorite soccer team playing a probably futile game unless QPR pull off a miracle

[Barmymoo]

That sounds like a day that could have been so great, but with gremlins. Boo.

I was meant to be going to see puppies today There was a fair scheduled with puppies and the fair has been rescheduled which means no puppies Might go visit a duckling instead.

[Lupercal]

Went to a "Love Music Hate Homophobia" night at University, it was pretty fun. Had some...interesting...live bands, and it totally bummed me out that I could've sorted a band out with some people if only I'd have been more proactive. The last guys I saw were bloody awful, and I hereby claim that when Uni ends in a few months, I will start a band with my brother. Because I'm bored of playing along to records.

[Patrick]

This weekend my band impressed a band that has good connections to the Gilman in Berkeley. We have at least 2 potential shows coming up at that venue in June now! And we finished recording instruments for our first album last night! I'm exhausted as fuck but I am super excited to let y'all know that it'll be available in about a month

[whom]

I think I might try to teach myself how to sing somewhat decently this summer.  Although, every summer I decide I'm going to teach myself something and don't follow up too well...

[Mister D Nomms]

Dear  diary,

     Today I had a good day. There were no hallucinations or bad people. I had fun even though it rained.

                              And Stuff,
                            Mister Nomms

[pwhodges]

It seems that someone with my name has just written an article about some anime on Pocket Jury.

[pwhodges]

In other news, I have been complaining that the successive improvements to the broadband delivered to my home have had no effect on my connection speeds.  Well, a few minutes ago I did something I didn't realise I could do, which is connect my computer directly without using the router.  When I did this I got three times the speed downloading (50Mbps), and eight times uploading (8Mbps); so it seems I have a problem with my router!  Probably in the configuration, because it's a modern one, and I have a very complicated setup here (I have eight external IP addresses, a non-routable internal subnet, and multiple NAT settings for different servers).

Time to get out the manual, I think.

[celticgeek]

I recently upgraded my broadband also, and also was amazed at the speed increase without the router.  A quick check of the router by the technician showed that the router was defective, and a new router fixed the problem.  My download speed now is about 60 Mbps, and upload speeds about 6 Mbps, both speeds being about what the upgrade promised, and about a factor of 10  over the previous speeds.  The previous slow speeds most likely being the fault of the defective router.

[Linds]

Paul, I really liked your article! But...Scott Pilgrim isn't anime/manga, it's Canadian!* But I do agree with you about Michael Cera - he was just not a good Scott Pilgrim.

*I am no expert in anime or manga, but my friends are and their knowledge (read: snobbery) is rubbing off on me I think.

[Unicorn]

Earlier today my friend was talking about throwing a house party and inviting the world. I told her she may not want to invite Scott Pilgrim, then, because they are not on good terms.

Dear Blog Thread,

Rammstein was amazing. Then I slept in a closet full of naked queers. Right now I'm drinking a milkshake.

Love,

Unicorn

[pwhodges]

Paul, I really liked your article! But...Scott Pilgrim isn't anime/manga, it's Canadian!

Oh, I realise that - after all I do say something about comparing its style to that of manga.  But clearly there's enough overlap that it's silly to pretend that they occupy entirely different universes.  And it was someone else's comparison of Scott Pilgrim (the film, presumably) with FLCL that got me going on that tack.

And thanks - glad you liked it!

[BeoPuppy]

[...]
Rammstein was amazing. Then I slept in a closet full of naked queers. Right now I'm drinking a milkshake.

Love,

Unicorn

I'm sorry, but all the queers were in the closet?

[Unicorn]

Yes.

Obvious jokes were made.

[Carl-E]

Nice wall o' cans! 

And I love canvas shoes. 

Can't wear them though (flat feet). 

And yeah, you're probably still drunk.  Enjoy! 


All my grades are in, and on time.  Now the complaining/begging begins...

[pwhodges]

So I wasn't getting the benefit that my new FTTC Internet service should have given.

Duh! When I bought the router, for some reason ($Deity knows why) I set the bandwidth control feature to the max the line could support at the time (20Mbps down, 1.2Mbps up). I've now disabled bandwidth control, and immediately have 50Mbps down, 8Mbps up which is more like what I was expecting (the service capability is 80/20, but I'm in the furthest property from the cabinet, so can't expect to get that).

[Barmymoo]

Good grief. My mum's internet struggles to get over 125 Kbps download most of the time. Why is rural internet so TERRIBLE if cities can get that sort of speed? It can take ten minutes to load the BBC News website sometimes.

[Redball]

Because the population density is too low to support the investment needed to bring higher speeds. I lucked out. I'm at the dead end of a road with maybe 50 homes, perhaps half of them seasonal. We got cable TV more than 15 years ago, before we moved fulltime here, because the cable company was planning to serve the nearest town, 5 miles away, and made a gamble that it could pick up some revenue by running service up our way. Internet didn't come for another 6-7 years. Before that, I was limited to 19.6k on good days. There have been moves to subsidize broadband into rural areas, but no large, consistent effort so far. The latest would have used a part of the RF spectrum next to the GPS band to provide wholesale wi-fi. It foundered because the transmissions interfered with GPS receivers.

[Barmymoo]

I can understand that argument in a place like the United States. But the UK is so much smaller! There are big cities within 30 miles of my mum's house.

[Redball]

I'd guess the same principle applies. If it cost as much per connection to extend cable into less dense areas, there'd be no reason not to extend it and get the revenue.

[Patrick]

I live in a town where anything less than 20mb/s is just plain unheard of. This town also built the first atomic bomb and we are working on being the first to harness nuclear fusion power, though, so I guess that's why. And to be honest I have no earthly idea how fast my connection is. I do know that I can have a 70 minute album in FLAC in under ten minutes using MF, 30 minutes if I torrent and there's more than like 3 seeders.

Blerg,

I have noticed I go through cycles of "FUCK YEAH I AM HAVING SUCH A GREAT TIME" followed by "God why am I such a worthless human being, I really do suck every butt" and it's about an even split that goes from 3pm Wednesdays being "FUCK YEAH" all the way til Monday morning, where I start hating myself again.

Is this what a musician's weekend is supposed to be or am I just a sad sappy sucker? Maybe I should just write all my songs on Mondays and Tuesdays.

[pwhodges]

I'm not talking cable here - this is over the phone line.  But now the local distribution cabinet at the end of the road has a fibre feed, so only the last quarter mile (in my case) is over copper.  Even in the country this will make a huge difference - and it really is intended to roll it out almost universally over the next several years.

[Patrick]

I'm not talking cable here - this is over the phone line.

What is this, the Stone Age?

[pwhodges]

There's cable along the road, and I get two mailings a week trying to persuade me to change.  But the cable services do not allow me to have eight IP addresses and run loadsa servers, like I do; also, although the headline speeds for cable are still a bit faster, in practice (here in the UK, at least) they have much higher contention as well, so my service is probably considerably better than what the cable would give me in practice for my kind of usage.

[schimmy]

I got food poisoning from one of my favourite takeaway places last night! What a bummer! I threw up all over my girlfriend's bathroom! Exclamation marks make this story exciting for you to read!

[Barmymoo]

Yes, my mum's internet comes down the phone line too, and cable isn't even an option there yet. She would have taken it had it been a few years ago, as she (this is so ridiculous) worked as a web designer. Now that she doesn't do that any more, she's actually getting rid of her connection and will share my stepdad's dial-up down the other phone line.

I am proof reading an essay written by the mother of the Korean boy who I tutor in English. His english grammar is more correct and his accent and fluency are more impressive, but her essays are really good! This one in particular has far fewer errors in it - which means she read and took note of my corrections on the last two, hurrah! - and I am having to google some of the words she's used to find out what they mean before I can work out whether or not they're correct (they usually are as well).

[Redball]

When my daily newspaper cut down on reporting staff 30 years ago, I was told to assemble a bunch of freelancers. One at the time was teaching freshman composition at a Detroit university. He'd bring his copy in after a previous night's meeting, but instead of handing it to me and leaving, he'd stand there while I read it, discussed it with him and typed it into the computer system. His writing improved, week by week. After six months or so, I asked if the changes in his writing for us had changed how he taught his students. Sure, he said. He now taught them to write as he was writing for the newspaper. I never thought about it before: I wonder how those students turned out.

[Akima]

What is this, the Stone Age?

I imagine it is a DSL service, probably ADSL.

[Barmymoo]

Alright guys I've made a decision. On Monday I'm going to start the Couch to 5k programme (got to wait til then - I have no sportswear and crucially no sports bra, and I don't really have time to go shopping until Saturday). I've got seven weeks until I go to America and I'm going to lose some weight. Just bought some weighing scales, headphones for my MP3 player and some jogging bottoms (all on eBay, hurrah!) and found a place to download a free podcast which tells you when to start and stop running, and plays music. Please hold me accountable to this!

[valley_parade]

Also for start/stop running things to listen to, LCD Soundsystem put out a mix/something or other a few years back called 45:33, I guess it was done with Nike and supposed to be a warm up/run/cool down thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84WZkbFaLc

[pwhodges]

ADSL.

This - but mine typically stays up without a break for several months at a time.  Sadly the FTTC service requires that I have the supplier's modem, which must be installed in an accessible place, so I can no longer put this or the router where my UPS is (in the roof space with the server), and a couple of recent brief power cuts have broken the continuity - as have the service upgrades.

[Linds]

found a place to download a free podcast which tells you when to start and stop running, and plays music. Please hold me accountable to this!

Where?! Link! I really want to start this after spring quarter ends and the timing is the part that concerns me the most.

[Barmymoo]

There's this one which I'll be using I think, but also several more here (scroll down a bit). I haven't listened to any of them yet but I'm hoping they'll be good. Might use several different ones as I go along just to try them.

[Carl-E]

Maybe not never.  What you need to do is hold that thought.  It may be a while, but the stars can, and do, align on occasion. 


Of course, it may not happen 'till you're 50, and it may ot happen at all.  But don't give it up too easily. 

[schimmy]

Just got told off by my landlord for installing a prepay electricity meter in my house. This was an interesting thing to be told off for, considering it's been there since before I moved in.

[Redball]

Please hold me accountable to this!

I'm experiencing a niggle of a nudge of a temptation to take the challenge.

[Barmymoo]

To join in with the C25k? or to hold me accountable? I'm fully in favour of being held accountable, in fact I need it!

[schimmy]

I have decided that since I have (a) a Sicilian girlfriend, and (b) vast swathes of lolling about on the dole in front of me, I am going to teach myself Italian! I bought myself a book, and am learning the basics at the moment. I seem to be okay with learning what individual words mean, and can understand written sentences containing those words, but an understanding of the grammar eludes me; I can't tell whether the grammar is more complicated and stricter than English, or if it's just that the rules are completely alien to me. I think part of it is that, since this is the first time I've ever attempted learning a second language, I've never really had to think about grammar before - there seems to be a lot to learn just to be able to form basic sentences. It's fun, though! Here's hoping I don't lose interest!

[Barmymoo]

I found that learning a foreign language helped me learn english grammar! And teaching english certainly helps, because I have to understand what I'm explaining. You'll probably find your girlfriend isn't great at explaining why the grammar is as it is, most native speakers don't actually know. I'd suggest getting a grammar guide, unless your book is very clear, because grammar is pretty fundamental to fluency. Good luck, I loved Italian when I briefly studied it.

Much as I love my job(s), I am rather annoyed tonight. I agreed last week that I would proof-read two essays this week for £30 each (very easy money, I'm a good proof-reader and pretty fast when I concentrate). I thought that one was due this week, and the other due next week.

I returned the first one this evening, and discovered that the second one is also due tomorrow. She hasn't finished writing it yet. It's 9pm. I get up at 6.30am, so I need to be in bed by 11 at the latest. I was meant to be going to a party. I am not impressed. I would say I can't do it, but £30 is £30 and I will need food money next year.

[The Seldom Killer]

Something about excercise procrastinate before the end of the post... Please hold me accountable to this!

Don't wait until Monday. You have three days in which to get a bit of a headstart here. Do a little bit of pre run stretching and then go for as brisk a walk as you can without needing a sports bra. When you start the running you're less likely to hit some T-junction deflation where you get to the end of the road on your first step out and wonder why it suddenly feels so hard. Resolutions are always better when they start today, you know it's true.

[Redball]

Those of you fluent in a second language may disagree, but from my own limited experience, it seems that trying to comprehend grammar may get in the way of learning the language. In training to go to India, we learned Marathi, the language of the Indian state of Maharashtra, (Mumbai's the capital). I kept trying to comprehend the grammar. Others in the group didn't worry about it. They learned the language more quickly.

[Barmymoo]

TSK, thanks for the advice but I'm not actually procrastinating so much as being realistic about my schedule this week. Tomorrow I have two revision classes to attend


The Cto5k plan actually includes the walking-jogging slow build up over time, you don't launch into a 5k run straight away. I'm not starting tomorrow because I want to go to morning prayer, and the rest of the day is super busy. Could start at the weekend, but I'm already quite busy (and fairly active - 15 mile cycle ride on Friday night). Next week is almost totally empty, I don't even have choir!

[The Seldom Killer]

Cto5K may be a slow build up, but never call it jogging, always call it running. It works better.

[Redball]

To join in with the C25k? or to hold me accountable? I'm fully in favour of being held accountable, in fact I need it!

To join in with the C25k, hold you accountable, hold myself accountable. I jogged from age 47 to retirement 14 years ago, and at times since I've walked fast enough to break into a shuffling jog, even to hold to it for a mile. I'm 178 cm, 82kg , way too much of that in my tummy, slightly embarrassing breasts but not yet in need of a sports bra, a couch potato spending more time on the laptop than the TV.
Printed out the regime this morning. I'll see.