Tuesday, 27th of June, 2000

The haste to organise our tour has meant not much time to update the blog. Sorry, fans!
Yesterday we bought our plane tickets finally, and I then went straight off and purchased a rather lovely Palm Vx handheld computer - part gratuitous gadget (every overseas tour requires that I purchase a gadget duty free) and part very useful organiser, which will save on paper use and poisoning (ha!) through constantly having notes written on my hand in purple and black ink. Since I got it duty free, I am forced to delay gratification and just stare at the sealed bag till I get through customs *laff*

Courtesy of New Scientist, a study has found that having a daily siesta increases the likelihood of having a heart attack by 50%.
Of course, it could just be that those who take siestas have a more sedentary lifestyle. You don’t say!
“The period just after waking in the morning is known to be a high-risk time for heart attacks.” Even less incentive now for me to wake up in the morning. Dammit!

The wonderful Kooky Kids have brought out their third compilation, this time a double CD called “Just Is”. Club Kooky happens every Thursday night at Club 77 on William St in Sydney, a venue for lots of esoteric electronica and weird shit.
It’s one of the best clubs in Sydney, along with the always reliable and wonderful Frigid.

Friday, 23rd of June, 2000

Am I a Funky Ashkenazi? Well being Jewish, atheist though I am, is an important part of my life, and I love the music, the culture, and the involvement that Jews always seem to have in subcultures, underground movements and so on.
Thanks to acb for that excellent link (an essay by the bizarre English songwriting genius Momus).

While we’re at it, here’s the blog YudelLine, “One Jew’s news and views”. Often amusing vaguely and not-so-vaguely Jewish-related news items… and he has generally admirable political views. Well worth a read.

Wednesday, 21st of June, 2000

I tutored a couple of Philosophy courses on logic a couple of years ago run by Greg Restall and now he’s mentioning me in his blog, so I’m mentioning him in mine! Powered by Blogger of course, nice looking and a great read.

From Greg’s page, an article on one masters student’s trials with his thesis. He included a Disacknowledgements page that wasn’t too popular with the staff at his university.

Tuesday, 20th of June, 2000

Many do not yet know of the horrors of the chemical DHMO - dihydrogen monoxide The Dihygrogen Monoxide Research Division offers all the information you could need (except the real identity of this substance, which I shall leave to the gentle reader to work out). Not everyone is against this substance’s use, as the Friends of Hydrogen Hydroxide’s page amply demonstrates.

Thanks to New Scientist for this reference, as well as the data haven entry below. Well worth a weekly read, you don’t have to be a geek to get something out of it.
While we’re at it, a good monthly read is Wire Magazine, the only glossy music magazine worth even opening in general. Worth every cent of the annual subscription, with fantastic free CDs and reviews, articles and interviews with some of the most interesting musicians in the world…

And finally, some much more worthy activism… A very dear friend is involved in the Cycle Against the Nuclear Cycle 2, which is a mega bicycle ride from Darwin/Jabiluka to Perth. Check out the site, sponsor them if you can…

Kooky or what? The Principality of Sealand has been an independent state (an island in international waters) since 1967. Now in one of those life-imitates-fiction scenarios, they look to be teaming up with the company HavenCo to create a data haven where various unregulated online services will be available. Neal Stephenson’s amazing novel Cryptonomicon (much better than his previous two also excellent books) suggested such a thing a year or so ago…

Bereavements today: A friend of the family died today… and last night my cello died. RIP. I’d needed a new one for a while, but not now, less than two weeks before I leave for overseas. [Yep, sorry, yet more confirmation that god does not exist. Not that I don’t have much more sophisticated arguments for that…]
I guess my spare cello will do for the overseas tour, but if you know anyone in Sydney with a great cello they want to sell, let me know!

Monday, 19th of June, 2000

A beautiful weekend, my occasional encroaching blackness notwithstanding. Watched the sequel to Wings of Desire - Faraway, So Close - and shared also music, good food, and even poetry with Somebody very lovely (cf 15th of June).
“Share and enjoy” with the people you care for is moral number one for today.

Today an unexpected phone call from a special person
Morals to be drawn include: Take good care of your belongings, even (or especially) in a place of study. Take the RTA to court if they nab you speeding (but _don’t_ speed anyway *chortle*).
And be thankful for your friends, I say! Especially if they’ve been forced by a (very good!) place of study to work for the enemy…

Friday, 16th of June, 2000

Ah well, later today - really today, not post-midnight last night.
It’s fairly limited in its scope, but still a worthwhile campaign - CokeSpotlight changes the logo to “Enjoy Climate Change”, and has info on Coca Cola’s anti-environmental policies.

My brain today is in vague-paranoia mode. “Gotta do this, gotta do that” - don’t even know what it is! But we (FourPlay) are going overseas in a couple of weeks, so it’s organise organise organise!
Burble burble.

You are today exhorted to look at the left hand column of this page for the reading and listening recommendations. You may also, if you wish, marvel at the pretty design and the re-jigging I’ve done so that the blog, Homepage and Raven pages all match up with text styles and stuff.
Today has otherwise been relatively unproductive - and since I had nothing to “produce” that means I must be doing my job well!
No doovy links for today - check out my links page if you like. It needs updating but is full to the brim nonetheless.

Thursday, 15th of June, 2000

Wednesday, spent a lovely day with a lovely lovely person. Perfect weather - sunny and clear but not hot.
In the evening, watched the wonderful film Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. In German, it’s Der Himmel über Berlin, a better title as it means both “The Sky Over Berlin” and “Heaven Over Berlin”.
It’s a beautiful film, mostly in black & white with perfectly reasoned use of colour, with an extraordinary soundtrack (usual for Wenders - the soundtrack to his film Until the End of the World is one of the best soundtracks or indeed compilations of music ever).

Tuesday, 13th of June, 2000

Life imitates comics? In Warren Ellis’s fantastic comic Transmetropolitan, the anti-hero Spider Jerusalem owns a mutant cat with two faces. Now in sunny Philadelphia USA (where else?), a real-life cat has been born with two faces. The article reads more like a Weekly World News article than a real newspaper, but hey, this is the USA!
In later news, however, the poor thing did not survive. The truth is always more prosaic than fiction, hey - the real world intervenes (post-modernist garblings to the contrary notwithstanding).

Sunday, 11th of June, 2000

Started my weblog today! In preparation for going overseas, where it’ll be fun to be able to post little blog items from all around Europe and NY! HTML coding help for nifty navbar and so on from the infamous acb, visiting Sydney over the long weekend.

As well as visiting acb’s weblog above, you are strongly advised to go directly to Virulent Memes, the frequently updated and viciously incisive weblog run by Graham Hubert Freeman, formerly Graham the Happy Scum.